LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Shelf.. 2_ 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS 



\ 



1 



THE 



TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS 



BEFORE THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY 



a Calm l&efciefa of tfje Case 

BY 

A STRANGER 

WHO ATTENDED ALL THE SESSIONS OF THE COURT 







NEW YORK 

ANSON D. F. KANDOLPH AND COMPANY 

(incorporated) 
182 Fifth Avenue 



5^730}! 






Copyright, 1893, 
By Anson D. F. Randolph akd Company 

(INCOBPOBATED). 



SSntberstts Press: 

John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 



PREFACE. 



WHILE the writer of the following review 
believes that the majority of the members of 
the General Assembly at Washington were mistaken 
in their opinions of the views of the Rev. Professor 
Briggs, D. D., he at the same time cherishes sincere 
respect for the Assembly as the supreme court of a 
church of Jesus Christ. 

He believes that the circumstances surrounding the 
trial of Dr. Briggs were of such a nature that error 
on the part of the court was unavoidable, and that it 
is therefore no reflection upon the court to point out 
wherein it may be shown to have erred. In doing 
this he has sought to avoid any word that might be 
regarded as disrespectful either to the Assembly as a 
whole or to any of its members. 

He has at the same time sought to be strictly im- 
partial and overlook no important point, whether 
favorable or unfavorable on either side. 

He has not written in a contentious spirit, but dis- 
passionately in the interests of truth and peace. 

Believing that the truth has not been apprehended, 
by reason of obscurities by which it has been clouded 



VI PREFACE. 

to the minds of those standing nearest to the consid- 
eration of it, he has felt called upon by the peculiar 
circumstances in which he was placed as a stranger 
and a lover of the truth, to contribute his share 
toward dispelling those obscurities that, if possible, 
Christian brethren now unhappily at variance may be 
helped to see eye to eye. 

Believing that peace can be established only on the 
basis of purity of doctrine, and that doctrines which 
have appeared to be heretical can be seen in their 
true light only by a careful reconsideration of the 
questions at issue in the light of all the evidence and 
arguments presented on both sides, the writer of the 
following review has undertaken this task, praying 
that the Holy Spirit, whose guidance has been sought 
in the accomplishing of it, may make use of the fol- 
lowing pages as a help toward promoting the peace 
of Jerusalem and the prosperity of Zion. 

This only need be added : Neither the Rev. Dr. 
Briggs, nor any other minister or member of the 
Presbyterian Church in the United States has had 
any knowledge of the writing of this review. The 
writer has assumed the sole responsibility for the 
writing of it, and for every sentiment it contains, and 
has withheld his name that the views presented 
may be judged according to their merits, apart 
from the influence of any name whether obscure or 
the reverse. R. J. L. 

August, 1893. 



CONTENTS. 



PAG3 

PREFACE v 

CHAPTER I. 
Introductory 9 

CHAPTER II. 
Attitude of Dr. Briggs 12 

CHAPTER III. 
Attitude of the Assembly 20 

CHAPTER IV. 
Attitude of "a Stranger" 33 

CHAPTER V. 

First Charge : The Reason a Fountain of Divine 

Authority. 39 

CHAPTER VI. 

Second Charge : The Church a Fountain of Divine 

Authority 60 



Vill CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VII. 
Third Charge : Inerrancy of Scripture 84 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Fourth and Fifth Charges : Authorship of the 

Pentateuch and The Book of Isaiah . . . 108 

CHAPTER IX. 

Sixth Charge : Progressive Sanctification after 

Death 127 

CHAPTER X. 

" The Rejected Charges " : Messianic Prophecy 

and Second Probation 144 

CHAPTER XI. 
Decisions and Protests 159 

CHAPTER XII. 
The Wrong and its Remedy 180 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Closing Summary . 193 



A EEVIEW 



THE TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 



CHAPTER I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

AS I happened to be on a visit to the American 
Republic and its Capital during the meeting of 
the Presbyterian General Assembly in May last, I 
availed myself of the opportunity of being present at 
all the sessions of the Briggs Trial. 

I had never seen the Rev. Dr. Briggs and had taken 
but little interest in his case. I had read his inaugural 
in the quiet of my study shortly after its first appear- 
ance, but only laid it aside as the utterance of a scholar 
who seemed to have no hesitation about leaving the 
beaten track and extending his investigations into fields 
which are commonly regarded as the peculiar domain 
of heterodoxy. 

I was aware that some of the writings of the author 
of the address were regarded by many as heretical in 
their tendencies if not in their teaching, and my read- 
ing of the inaugural gave me additional insight into 
the reasons for this opinion. 



10 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

As time passed and the question of the orthodoxy 
of the views of Dr. Briggs came before the Detroit 
Assembly, and a year later the Portland Assembly, 
and as this question was once and again considered 
by the Presbytery of New York, I, in common with 
others, gained a general knowledge of the question 
through the religious and secular press, but not such 
information as enabled me to come to a definite con- 
clusion as to the merits of the case. 

The questions raised seemed to be such as could be 
settled only by a careful, critical study of them. I 
knew, however, that in the Presbyterian Church in the 
United States there was no scarcity of scholars capa- 
ble of giving those questions the best consideration ; 
and I hoped to have the privilege, at the Washington 
Assembly, of hearing the views of so scholarly a man 
as Dr. Briggs set forth by himself, and of hearing the 
replies of other scholars so clearly presented as to 
set the church, if not the world, at rest regarding 
the question of Dr. Briggs' agreement or want of 
agreement with the standards of the Presbyterian 
Church. 

The occasion seemed to afford an excellent oppor- 
tunity for doing this. Many of the five or six hun- 
dred commissioners composing the Assembly were 
men of learning, and all of them were earnest and 
conscientious men. The promptness and general skill 
and fairness of the moderator could not easily have 
been excelled. The apparent equanimity of all the 
members of the court seemed also to be peculiarly 
favorable. 



INTRODUCTORY. 11 

I felt, at the opening of the proceedings, that if Dr. 
Briggs failed to prove that his views were Scriptural 
and orthodox, it must be either because they were not, 
or because he would fail to make the best use of his 
opportunity, or else because of something operating 
on the minds of his auditors to prevent them from 
giving due weight to his statements. 

I felt, on the other hand, that if the opponents of 
the views of Dr. Briggs failed to prove to the satisfac- 
tion of all that his views were unscriptural and heret- 
ical, it must either be because they were not, or 
because those opposing them would not make the best 
use of their opportunity, or else because of something 
operating upon the minds of their hearers to prevent 
them from giving due weight to the statements and 
arguments presented. 

As the case proceeded, however, I found that the 
occasion was not so auspicious as it at first sight 
seemed. 

That Dr. Briggs did not succeed in convincing the 
majority of the Assembly that his views were orthodox, 
it is unnecessary to say ; and it is equally true that 
his opponents did not succeed in convincing the whole 
Assembly that his views were at variance with the 
Westminster standards. More than one hundred of 
the commissioners held that his views were not at 
variance with any essential doctrine, nor in any re- 
spect such as to warrant his suspension from the office 
of the ministry. Many of the disinterested spectators 
were of the same opinion, and there appear to be 
thousands throughout the church whose minds are 
still in doubt. 



12 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 



CHAPTER II. 



ATTITUDE OF DR. BRIGGS. 



THAT Dr. Briggs did not succeed in persuading 
the Assembly to sustain the New York Pres- 
bytery's verdict of acquittal, was not due to any failure 
on his part to make the best use of his opportunity. 
From the first moment of his appearance in the 
court until near the close of the proceedings, when 
fatigue compelled him to withdraw, he was intent 
upon the case. He listened to the statements and 
arguments of his opponents hour after hour, occa- 
sionally checking seeming departures from the right 
line of procedure, with the earnestness of one who 
realized that his ecclesiastical life was at stake and 
that great principles were involved. 

When it came his turn to speak, his appearance 
was a surprise to some who had formed their im- 
pressions of him from current rumor. Those who 
had formed the opinion that he was not a deeply con- 
scientious man had to reverse that opinion. Those 
who had received the impression that he was not a 
thoroughly devout student of the Word of God had 
to dismiss that impression. They saw before them a 
man whose utterances and whole bearino- commended 



ATTITUDE OF DR. BRIGGS. 13 

him to them as a Christian scholar, a reverent student 
of the Word of God, a devout seeker after truth. 
He had evidently spent much of his time among 
books, and students, and ideas, where he had his 
course of study and reasoning for the most part in 
his own hands, and it was, perhaps, partly on this 
account that he seemed to find it difficult to bear 
patiently at times with the opposition of those who 
seemed unable either to understand or accept his 
views. 

It was evident that the opinions he held were not 
lightly entertained. They were based upon what he 
saw to be incontrovertible facts. They had been 
closely reasoned out in the light of Scripture and of 
the Westminster Confession and Catechisms. He 
claimed that while some of them were not directly 
taught in the Westminster standards, they were not 
contradictory of anything in those standards. They 
might be extra-confessional but were not contra-con- 
fessional. He frankly admitted having used the lan- 
guage of all the quotations that were made from his 
writings, but in some cases he strongly repudiated 
the meaning that had been put upon his words, and 
the inferences that were drawn from them. He was 
deeply stirred at the omission by the prosecution, and 
the overlooking by the court, of explanatory state- 
ments and qualifying phrases which seemed to him to 
be of vital importance ; and from his point of view 
those statements and phrases were indeed vital. No 
disinterested observer could for a moment accuse him 
of anything like quibbling, or of not fairly meeting 



14 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

each issue as it arose. To a stranger he appeared to 
be frank and candid in the highest degree. He 
seemed to be totally unacquainted with the arts by 
which some men seek to win favor, and outwit 
their opponents. He appeared to disregard the use 
that may be made of the tricks of oratory in appealing 
to a jury, and to rely solely on a plain statement of 
the facts of his position, and upon the lines of reason- 
ing which had led him to the conclusions he had 
reached. His explanations of his positions seemed 
lucid and his logic accurate. 

One of the most venerable of his opponents, the 
Rev. Dr. Duffield of Princeton, paid him the following 
tribute : — 

"Dr. Briggs undoubtedly is a man of rare scholarship, 
— a man who has received honors from European univer- 
sities, and who deserves the respect and the kind treatment 
of his Christian brethren. And, if Dr. Briggs will par- 
don me for sa} 7 ing it, if Dr. Briggs' logical faculty were 
equal to his scholarship, I know not his peer in the in- 
tellectual world, certainly of America." 

To a stranger the value of this high tribute was 
enhanced by the fact that it was exceedingly difficult 
to detect any flaw in his logic. He seemed almost 
too good a logician. He relied too much upon logical 
syllogisms, and made use of them in some instances, 
in his defence before the Assembly, when a less strictly 
intellectual process might have served his purpose 
better. I would say that he sometimes appeared to 
forget that " those root truths upon which the founda- 



ATTITUDE OF DR. BRIGGS. 15 

tions of being rest are apprehended, not logically at 
all, but mystically ; " but I am forbidden by the recol- 
lection that some of his opponents accused him 
of mysticism. Nor can I appropriately quote here 
these other words of Principal Shairp : " When once 
awakened the spiritual faculty far outgoes all systems, 
scientific, philosophical, or theological, and apprehends 
and lives by truths which these cannot reduce to sys- 
tem." These words would be inappropriate inasmuch 
as the spiritual faculty in the case of Dr. Briggs was 
evidently far from being dormant. It was normally 
awake and keenly sensitive. His intimate friends 
testified to the earnestness and sincerity of his Chris- 
tian life, and his opponents joined them in this testi- 
mony. They never once charged him with insincerity, 
nor as much as hinted that his heart was not right 
toward God. From all that he himself said, either 
incidentally or directly, regarding God the Father, 
God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, it was mani- 
fest that he was a devout believer in the doctrine of 
the Holy Trinity. It was equally evident that he was 
an ardent lover of the Lord Jesus, and held firmly to 
the great doctrine of the Atonement. He did not 
parade his piety, it is true, yet it was apparent to all 
who saw and heard him for the first time that he was 
what his friends and opponents alike declared him to 
be, not only a great scholar but a good man. After 
carefully observing his attitude of mind, and listening 
attentively to all his utterances in his defence, I was 
not surprised when told privately that in matters of 
morals " he is a Puritan of the Puritans." 



16 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

IIearing such testimony borne regarding the ac- 
cused, and observing that this testimony was con- 
firmed by all his utterances and his whole bearing, it 
was scarcely possible for a disinterested stranger to 
help wishing in the early stages of the proceedings, 
that the trial should not go on, but that the request 
of Dr. Briggs and his friends should be complied with, 
and the case be allowed to take the usual course and be 
first dealt with by the court of next higher jurisdic- 
tion after the Presbytery, the Synod of New York. 

The attitude of Dr. Briggs may perhaps be best set 
forth by the following quotations from the close of his 
two main arguments before the Assembly. In clos- 
ing his five hours' argument upon the question of 
procedure, he spoke as follows : — 

"Mr. Moderator and brethren, the appellant in the 
opening argument, as I have already intimated, entered 
into the merits of the appeal. I shall not attempt to go 
into that merit myself except so far as to make an explicit 
denial of his statement, when he charges me with teach- 
ing doctrines which are fundamental errors. I deny that 
I have ever taught any doctrines that are fundamental 
errors, and nry presbytery has acquitted me, brethren, of 
teaching any fundamental errors." 

Then, with uplifted hand, Dr. Briggs solemnly 
uttered the following words : — 

"I affirm before this body that I believe the Holy 
Scriptures to be the Word of God, the only infallible rule 
of faith and practice, according to the vow that I assumed 
at my ordination, and which I have assumed every three 



ATTITUDE OF DR. BRIGGS. 17 

years, according to the rule of the Union Theological 
Seminary. I affirm that I hold to the whole doctrine 
taught in the first chapter of the Westminster Confession 
relating to Holy Scripture, without any qualification or 
reservation whatever. 

"I heg leave to affirm that I hold to the entire system 
of doctrine set forth in the Wesminster Confession, and 
anything that I may have said that at all conflicts with 
this statement is due to the misinterpretations which 
have he'en put upon the language which I have uttered. 
I will not say that these misinterpretations are always 
intentional. I shall not exonerate myself from some pos- 
sible blame in lack of clearness in the enunciation of 
them. But I beg leave to affirm the truth that I have 
made no statement that at all conflicts with the affirma- 
tions that I have made before you. 

"And now, brethren, in all honesty between us as breth- 
ren, ought not this case to cease ? Send it to the Synod 
of New York, — and I call in all honesty and friendliness 
upon the appellants to unite with me in that procedure, — 
and I promise them in your presence that if they will go 
with me to the Sjmod of New York, where the whole case 
can be considered by that Synod, in the most friendly and 
courteous manner, I will aid in a full solution of all the 
matters in dispute. That is all I have to say. If I have 
said anything that at all injures the feelings of any mem- 
ber of this court, I very much regret it. If I have said 
anything in my inaugural that has disturbed the peace of 
the church or caused any doubt or uncertainty or affliction 
to even the feeblest of God's children, I regret it more 
than any one else can do. 

"I have been a teacher of the Bible in the Union 
Theological Seminary for twenty years. There are only 



18 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

four professors now teaching in your theological semi- 
naries that have been in service longer than I have. 
There are only two of them that have taught more minis- 
ter- now in the service than I have. I challenge the 
production of a single one of these ministers that have 
been under my instruction during the past twenty years 
who can say that anything that I have taught him has 
undermined or diminished his faith in the divine authority 
of Holy Scripture or his love for the Word of God." 

It was not surprising that at the close of this ear- 
nest appeal the court should, for the moment, have 
forgotten the moderator's charge and given way to a 
burst of applause. Yet the appeal was in vain. The 
Assembly by an overwhelming majority, 409 to 145, 
decided not to remit the case to the synod, but to 
put Dr. Briggs on trial at once. When the merits of 
the case were considered, he closed his seven hours' 
argument in his defence with the following words : 

' ' Now, Mr. Moderator and brethren, I have endeavored 
to set before you as clearly and thoroughly as I could 
what are my views on the subjects in dispute. I hold 
these views sincerely and with all my heart. I hold that 
they are the views that are set forth in Holy Scripture. 
The larger portion of them are set forth also in the West- 
minster Confession of Faith, and as I know from a study 
of the Westminster divines for many years, would be 
regarded by them as very important matters of the Puritan 
faith of the seventeenth century. 

" There are other matters in dispute which have arisen 
in the public mind since the times of the Westminster 
Assembly, and have received no definition in our stand- 



ATTITUDE OE DR. BRIGGS. 19 

ards. Now, you must judge upon these matters as judges 
in the presence of Jesus Christ, and before the living 
God, and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. I chal- 
lenge you before God that you judge righteous judgment. 
I challenge you before God that you judge me according 
to the record of the declarations I have made. I challenge 
you before Jesus Christ that you do no wrong to the 
Church of the living God." 



20 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 



CHAPTER III. 

ATTITUDE OF THE ASSEMBLY. 

THE General Assembly that convened at Wash- 
ington, D. C, on the 18th May, 1893, was a 
typical Presb} T terian Supreme Court. Seldom have 
over' five hundred and fifty men of equal intelligence 
been seen gathered together as one body. Coming 
from all parts of the great American Republic, and 
from the church's mission fields in China, India, South 
America and elsewhere, all the commissioners, clerical 
and lay alike, seemed from the first to be possessed of 
a spirit of calmness which betokened that they felt 
there was grave business on hand. The exceptions to 
this state of calm reserve were so rare as to be very 
noticeable when they did occur. 

Some minds were so overburdened with a sense of 
the importance of the great issue before them that 
they could not refrain from giving vent to their feel- 
ings as soon as an opportunity was afforded them of 
addressing their brethren. The retiring moderator 
was the first to relieve his mind in this way. His 
opening sermon was of the nature of an earnest argu- 
ment in advance against the supposed heresies the 
Assembly when constituted was expected to deal with. 
That the calmness on the surface of the assembly had 



ATTITUDE OF THE ASSEMBLY. 21 

a great depth of strong feeling underneath it was 
made manifest by the applause that unexpectedly 
burst forth in the sacred gathering when the preacher 
gave utterance to sentiments that most directly an- 
tagonized the alleged heresies. 

This burst of feeling over, the commissioners settled 
back into their former attitude of calm reserve. Ob- 
serving their decorum throughout the prolonged dis- 
cussions, one was sometimes at a loss to understand 
the secret of their marked calmness. Was it a con- 
scientious sense of the gravity of the occasion ? Or 
was it simply coolness, such as is ordinarily character- 
istic of the American people ? Were many of the 
commissioners still undecided as to what their final 
action should be, and were they holding their judg- 
ment in abeyance until the arguments were in ? Or 
did the majority of the assembly feel that they had 
been sent to Washington to discharge an unpleasant 
duty, and must discharge it whatever arguments to the 
contrary might be presented ? Did they feel that they 
were so strong that they could afford to be silent and 
allow the opposing minority the utmost latitude until 
the time of voting should come ? Probably no one 
of these suppositions, nor all of them taken together, 
would fully account for the quiet reserve that was 
manifest. To a disinterested observer the considera- 
tions that seemed to have chief weight were these : 
The impression prevailed throughout the length and 
breadth of the church that Dr. Briggs entertained and 
taught heretical views upon several doctrines which 
the Presbyterian Church has always regarded as vital ; 



■22 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

the commissioners sent to the assembly were expected 
to set the mind of the church at rest by condemning 
those alleged heresies ; if they failed to do this, then 
the impression would go abroad that the Presbyterian 
Church had drifted away from her old moorings ; if 
they sent the case to the Synod of New York, they 
would be accused of having failed to discharge the 
duty assigned them ; and as for their failing to find 
Dr. Briggs guilty of the heresies charged against him, 
this would be out of the question, inasmuch as the 
majority of the membership of the church believed that, 
through the columns of the religious and secular press, 
they were already in possession of all the evidence 
that was needed in order to condemn him. Under 
such circumstances what could the assembly do, in 
the interests of the peace of the church and the cause 
of truth, but the thing which the great majority of 
the church believed to be the only thing that could 
properly be done ? It might be said that they should 
have braved the opinions of the many who would have 
been disappointed by such a mode of procedure, and 
remitted the case to the Synod of New York, in the 
hope that both the peace of the church and the inter- 
ests of truth in general would eventually be better 
conserved in this way ; but in the discretion of the 
Assembly it was not deemed expedient to pursue this 
course ; and what more need be said ? The discretion 
of a court is not subject to review. It would be 
ungenerous to say that their discretion may have 
been governed by circumstances outside the court, 
or to say that the members of the prosecuting com- 



ATTITUDE OF THE ASSEMBLY. 23 

mittee were far from being alone in wishing to have 
the case settled at that Assembly, and settled in 
favor of their appeal. To say this might be equal 
to imputing not very creditable motives to a body 
of Christian men who were without doubt honorable 
and conscientious. 

I am aware that there are those who think that all 
the above considerations should be ruled out, and that 
it should simply be said that the case of Dr. Briggs 
was decided solely in accordance with the evidence 
and arguments presented before the court. There are 
no doubt thousands who believe this. Far be it from 
me to say that those who voted for the condemnation 
and suspension of Dr. Briggs did not believe they 
were voting in as close accord as possible with the 
evidence and arguments presented. I sincerely be- 
lieve the very opposite of this. But I also believe 
that it was impossible for the court to be properly 
seized of all the explanations made and all the argu- 
ments and evidence presented. The evidence was 
simply voluminous. It consisted of printed volumes, 
and sections and sentences of volumes, which it 
would have taken the most skilled of scholars days, 
if not weeks, to examine under the most favor- 
able circumstances. Think of the following as sub- 
mitted in evidence by Col. J. J. McCook on behalf 
of the Prosecuting Committee, here called the ap- 
pellant.: — 

"Upon pages 86, 88, and 89 of the printed document 
in the hands of the commissioners will be found reference 
to the evidence introduced by the appellant. On pages 



24 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

89, 00, 91, 02, and 93 will be found reference to the evi- 
dence introduced by the appellee, all of which, having 
been received as competent evidence by the lower court, 
ma}' be used by the parties in the argument of this 

appeal. 

"When sitting as ajudicatory in a judicial case, the mem- 
bers of the court are charged with judicial knowledge of 
the contents of the constitution of the Presbyterian Church 
in the United States of America, consisting of the Con- 
fession of Faith, the larger and shorter Catechisms, the 
Form of Government, the Book of Discipline, and Direc- 
tory of Worship, a copy of which was introduced in 
evidence by the appellant, marked F. 

"The members of the court are also charged with judi- 
cial knowledge of the contents of the Holy Bible, a copy of 
which was introduced in evidence by the appellant, marked 
G, and any portions of the Holy Bible and the constitu- 
tion of the church may be referred to by the appellant, 
without any previous designation of the part or parts 
thereof to be used. 

"The minutes of the General Assembly being a pub- 
lic document and an official record of the church, the 
court must also take judicial knowledge of the contents 
thereof, and the appellant proposes to use portions of 
pages 57 and 235 of the minutes of the General Assembly 
of 1802. 

"Use will also be made, as a part of the record in this 
case, of portions of the original charges and specifications 
in this case presented to the Presbytery of New York on 
the 5th day of October, 1891, or of all or any part of the 
amended charges and specifications (found at pages 44 to 
75 of the printed document) presented to the Presbytery 
of New York on the 0th day of November, 1802, including 



ATTITUDE OF THE ASSEMBLY. 25 

the quotations from the inaugural address, and the cita- 
tions of proof from Scripture, the Confession of Faith, and 
the larger and shorter Catechisms. 

" The appellant will also use the judgment, the notice of 
appeal, the appeal, and the specifications of errors alleged, 
which have already been read, and will be found at pages 
3 to 3-4 (inclusive) in the printed document. 

••The appellant will also use the following pages, or parts 
thereof, of the minutes of the Presbytery of Xew York : 
vol. xiv., pages 227, 228, 265, 276. 285. 286, 291, 292, 
294, '303-305, 310, 313, 319, 355, 356, 361, 378, 384, 
385, 395, 396, 397, and 500 et seq. TVe don't propose to 
read those pages. This is for the identification of the 
matter. "We propose to read them if we care to, but we 
don't propose to read them as a whole. It is simply for 
notice to the appellee of such portions of the record as we 
wish to use. 

•'• The appellant will also use the following pages or parts 
thereof of the stenographic report of the trial in the Pres- 
bytery of New York from Nov. 9, 1892, to Jan. 9, 1893, 
as follows: pages 121, 122, 123, 148, 187, 188, 405, 411, 
451 ef seq., 470-472. 475. 476. 477. 478. 784. 900, 993, 
1009, 1010, 1028, 1029, 1035, 1036-1038, 1153, 1174^. 
1210. 1212. 1214. 1225, 1228, 1341, 1343-1351. 

••The appellant will also use the Preface to the Inaug- 
ural Address, third edition, with the appendix thereto, and 
the whole or parts of the following pages thereof: 25. 26, 
27. 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 41, 53, 55, 5S, 89, 103, 104, 105, 
106, 107, 147: Dr. Briggs' work, < Whither, 3 pages 11. 
211, and 221; Dr. Briggs' 'Biblical Study,' pages 161 
and 243; Dr. Briggs' 'Who Wrote the Pentateuch?' or 
parts thereof, as follows: pages 23, 25, 28, 29, 75. 79. 
101, 106, 124, 157, 158, 159, and 162; Dr. Briggs' 



26 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

'Who Wrote Isaiah?' pages 135, 137, and 138; Dr. 
Briggs' article in the ' Presbyterian Review ' for April, 
1884, page 384. 

"The appellant will also use in its argument portions 
of pages 1 and 4 of Newman's ' Apologia pro Vita Sua, 
in the volume submitted in evidence by the appellant 
marked D. 

" The appellant will also use portions of book i. chapters 
i. and ii., book ii. chapter ii., and book iv. chapter ii., 
of Martineau's 'Seat of Authority in Religion,' in the 
volume introduced in evidence by the appellant marked E: 
'Andover Review,' vol. xiii. page 59; Kuenen's 'Prophets 
and Prophecies in Israel ' (1877), pages 443-449. 

"I shall not take the time of the court to read any of 
these citations at this time; but they may be read, and 
will be referred to from time to time during the argument. 
In this way the appellant hopes and expects to use but 
little more than one-half of the time assigned to it. 
Dr. Lampe will now present the appellant's opening 
argument." 

Note also the following statements by Dr. Briggs, 
as indicating the vastness of the mass of evidence 
which it was necessary for the court to consider, in 
order to have an intelligent acquaintance with his 
position. 

" I wish to make a few preliminary statements for the 
information of the house, and the gentlemen of the press, 
and the stenographer. 

"First, I waive the reading of the records, although I 
feel very deeply that the records contain my defence in its 
fulness, including the printed document called the de- 
fence, also the volume entitled the ' Higher Criticism of 



ATTITUDE OF THE ASSEMBLY. 27 

the Hexateuch,' which is a part of the defence, and the 
volume on ' The Bible, the Church, and the Reason, ' 
which was submitted to the Presbytery of New York as a 
part of the evidence, and also all of the evidence which I 
submitted to the Presbytery of New York in the trial. 
But the reading of all that defence and all that evidence 
would consume a great many hours, and I have taken it 
for granted that this defence and the evidence having been 
sent by mail to every commissioner of this assembly, I 
might take it for granted that as honorable men they had 
read it, and it would only be necessary for me in argu- 
ment to call attention to what I regarded as the essential 
parts thereof. 

" Second, I have endeavored to save the time of the house 
as far as possible in my argument. Therefore I have 
gone over it and I have cut it up and readjusted so many 
parts of it as that I can answer the question of the stated 
clerk that not even the copy which is in my hands can 
really be relied upon as giving to the stenographer the 
argument which I am now to make. Because it is neces- 
sary, under the peculiar circumstances in which I am now 
placed, to make some portions of my argument purely 
extempore. 

"Let me say, in the third place, that there are so many 
of these specifications of error which concern purely the 
Presbytery of New York, that I feel it is a serious burden 
that it should be laid upon me to defend the presbytery. I 
wish that the commissioners of the presbytery had more 
time to defend the presbytery with reference to these 
matters." 

In addition to all this, Dr. Briggs found it neces- 
sary to bring a number of volumes before the court, 



28 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

from some of which lengthy extracts were read in 
his defence, and one of which he was so questioned 
regarding that he said that in-order to answer fully, 
he would require to read the whole chapter referred to, 
and offered to lend the volume to his questioner. 

Besides all this, the minds of the commissioners 
were further distracted, by the multiplicity of techni- 
cally arranged matters, which all required separate 
consideration, — such as the first ground of appeal 
with twelve specifications under it ; the second ground 
of appeal with its three specifications ; the third 
ground of appeal with its two specifications ; the 
fourth ground of appeal with its six specifications ; the 
fifth ground of appeal with its eleven specifications. 

After days had been spent in considering all these 
matters seriatim which required the commissioners 
to give close attention, forenoon, afternoon, and even- 
ing, to addresses ranging from three to five hours in 
length, then came the consideration of the original 
and amended charges, extending over a still longer 
number of days, and requiring the attention of the 
commissioners, forenoon, afternoon, and evening, to 
addresses ranging from four to seven hours in length. 
No wonder that at one stage of the proceedings, when 
Dr. Briggs was presenting some of his most impor- 
tant evidence, a commissioner should have moved 
that the Assembly take an extended recess, as about 
half a dozen commissioners near him were fast 
asleep. 

So complex and comprehensive was the matter to 
be considered, so voluminous was the evidence, and 



ATTITUDE OF THE ASSEMBLY, 29 

so extended was the argument, that it was simply 
impossible for the vast majority of the commissioners 
to follow the case closely and give due weight to all the 
statements and explanations made. Had there been 
time in the intervals between sessions to read the 
evidence as it appeared from day to day in the official 
report of the Assembly, it might have been otherwise, 
or had the commissioners been in possession of the 
volumes referred to in evidence, but even this was 
not the case. Strange as it may seem, though all 
the charges against Dr. Briggs were based upon his 
inaugural address, not a copy of that address was to 
be found in the Assembly. A commissioner proposed 
to have copies of it introduced, that the quotations 
might be read in their connection, but the Assembly 
paid no heed to the proposal. The commissioners 
probably felt that they had enough to perplex them in 
the documents already in their hands, and in the long 
and elaborate addresses to which they must try to 
listen, and that the original and fundamental docu- 
ment would only add to their perplexity. It was 
evident that in undertaking to investigate all the im- 
portant doctrinal statements and principles before 
them, in a thoroughly satisfactory manner, in the few 
days at their disposal, they had undertaken an impos- 
sible task. They might go through the forms of 
a judicial investigation with all possible patience, 
but they could not attain the true ends of such an 
investigation. 

It must be admitted that all this operated to the 
disadvantage of Dr. Briggs. The charges that had 



30 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

been made against him were simple, strong, and easily 
remembered. The newspaper articles and popular 
rumors respecting- those charges, and his alleged 
heresj in general, had impressed the charges deeply 
open the minds of all; and unless, in his defence, he 
could succeed in effacing that impression by what he 
had the opportunity of saying only once and that to 
a wearied audience, the impression would remain. So 
numerous were the points to be discussed, and the 
statements to be refuted, that long before the defend- 
ant had finished his argument the explanations he had 
made in the early part of his defence, which occupied 
days, must have been obscured if not effaced by the 
consideration of other matters of a different doctrinal 
nature. Dr. Briggs himself saw this danger, and at the 
opening of his defence sought to guard the Assembly 
against it as follows : — 

" The peril of the situation is this, brethren, — I ask you 
to guard yourselves against it as judges of this court, — 
that when it conies to a vote and you are weary with the 
long discussion of the parties, and the debate, you shall 
not rush on without thought, and sustain one specification 
after another without giving it the due consideration that 
it requires." 

It was significant that when the vote was taken all 
of the thirty-four specifications were sustained except 
two, and that these two, containing a charge of preju- 
dice against certain well-known members of the New 
York Presbytery, were easily understood and remem- 
bered, and from their personal character had made an 



ATTITUDE OF THE ASSEMBLY. 31 

indelible impression upon the minds of the commis- 
sioners. Another specification of a similar nature was 
sustained by a majority of only two votes, and any one 
listening to the discussion could easily understand why 
it was not rejected along' with the other two. 

The whole vote to sustain the appeal against the 
acquittal of Dr. Briggs stood as follows : Total 
number of votes cast, 199 ; to sustain, 298 ; to sus- 
tain in part, 85 ; not to sustain. 116. 

The remarkable majority against Dr. Briggs was 
owing largely, if not wholly, to the difficulty commis- 
sioners must have found in retaining and weighing the 
arguments and evidence presented. Judging as a dis- 
interested observer, the majority of the assembly never 
properly apprehended Dr. Briggs' position. They never 
succeeded in looking at the matters in dispute from his 
point of view. Hence, what was plain truth to him was 
distorted truth to them. They could not reconcile 
his statements with his claim to being an orthodox 
teacher. How he could make the strong assertions of 
loyalty to the standards of the church, and hold the 
views he seemed to them to hold, appeared to be an 
enigma to them. 

The great difference between the majority and the 
minority in the Assembly was not a difference of 
scholarship, nor of intellectual ability, nor of sound- 
ness in the faith, nor of fair-mindedness ; it consisted 
in this, that the minority saw the matters in dispute 
from Dr. Briggs' point of view, while the majority did 
not. To a disinterested onlooker this was clear. 
The majority condemned Dr. Briggs for his views as 



32 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

fchey interpreted them, and not as he interpreted 
them and as they really were. According to their 
understanding of them, Dr. Briggs' teachings were at 
variance with the Scriptures and the standards of the 
church. According to his own understanding of them 
fchey were not at variance with either. It is not the 
first time that equally honest and equally devout lovers 
of the same truth have misunderstood one another. 
Whether this misunderstanding was the fault of Dr. 
Briggs or the majority, or both, or neither, need not 
be discussed, but that it was a fact will appear from a 
calm review of the merits of the case. 



ATTITUDE OF "A STRANGER." 33 



CHAPTER IV. 

ATTITUDE OF " A STRANGER." 

BORN" of Scottish Presbyterian parents, early in- 
structed in the Bible and the Westminster 
"Shorter Catechism" after the old-time Scottish fash- 
ion ; specially instructed in the standards of the 
Presbyterian Church by a thoroughly evangelical and 
orthodox Scotch minister ; subsequently instructed in 
theology by the late venerable Dr. Charles Hodge and 
his associates during a three years' course at Princeton 
Theological Seminary; for more than twenty years a 
city pastor, ministering to people of undoubted intelli- 
gence and orthodoxy ; for the past quarter of a century 
a reader of that witness for orthodoxy The Presby- 
terian, — I found myself on the 18th of May last, in the 
ordering of Providence, and without any pre-arrange- 
ment of mine, a visitor at the Washington Assembly. 

As already intimated, I had formed no definite opin- 
ion as to the merits of the Briggs case, and had taken 
no side upon the questions at issue, though my reading 
on the subject had tended to incline me toward an 
unfavorable judgment of Dr. Briggs' views. 

I found myself ready to listen impartially to both 
sides, and was curious to know how the evidence and 
arguments would impress me. 

3 



34 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

It was interesting to me to find that Dr. Briggs 
and his friends seemed to me to have quite the best 
of the argument upon the question as to whether 
the case should he tried there and then, or sent 
to the Synod of New York. But my conviction that 
the majority had acted in accordance with their best 
discretion in deciding to try the case without delay 
kept me still in sympathy with them. It must be 
acknowledged that my desire to hear the merits of 
the case discussed also helped to reconcile me to the 
fact that my judgment had not been the judgment 
of the majority. When the merits of the case came 
up for discussion I gave close attention to the care- 
fully prepared argument of Dr. Lampe on behalf of 
the prosecuting committee, but was surprised to find 
that I could not agree with many of the statements it 
contained. While, in some instances, by quotations 
from Dr. Briggs' writings, it appeared to show that 
Dr. Briggs was out of accord with the Presbyterian 
standards, in other cases it seemed to fail to grasp 
and meet his views. The Scripture passages cited 
and the application made of them seemed to lack 
pertinency. All that the passages taught could be 
true, and the views they were cited to disprove could 
also be true. There were not a few examples of this 
kind of irrelevancy and inconclusiveness in quotations, 
both from the Bible and the Westminster divines. 
There were also positions taken which were obviously 
contrary to the Presbyterian standards, as may be seen 
in the following pages. 

Then I discovered that Dr. Lampe was far more 



ATTITUDE OF "A STRANGER." 35 

" orthodox " than T had been trained to be at Prince- 
ton, or than I had become after over twenty years of 
study along the lines on which I entered during my 
seminary course. I saw that his ideas of the Church 
and the reason as channels of divine authority were 
far from being mine, that his " views of the doctrine 
of inspiration " and the inerrancy of Scripture were not 
in accord with the special teachings of two of my Prince- 
ton professors, and that his statements and reasoning- 
regarding the authorship of the Pentateuch were di- 
rectly opposed to the published views of another of my 
Princeton professors, as will appear when the several 
charges against Dr. Briggs are passed under review. 

On the other hand, in listening to Dr. Briggs in his 
defence of his views, I was impressed with the clear- 
ness of his statements and the directness with which 
he met every charge. His appeals to both the Word of 
God and the Westminster standards seemed pertinent; 
his reasoning plain and his arguments conclusive. In 
the light of his exposition of his inaugural, its mean- 
ing and intent as a loyal contribution toward a right 
understanding of the authority of Holy Scripture and 
the relations of the Church and the reason became ap- 
parent. Even the statements the inaugural contained 
which at first view had seemed decidedly objectionable 
were almost entirely relieved of their offensiveness. 

But what interested me most was the remarkable 
agreement of the views of Dr. Briggs, upon several of 
the doctrines on which he had been arraigned, with 
the views I had been taught at Princeton, and which 
I had taught freely to intelligent and orthodox con- 
gregations for more than twenty years. 



36 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

My conviction was that the Assembly could not 
possibly condemn Dr. Briggs for holding those views ; 
that if they did they would condemn many of the 
most esteemed and orthodox ministers, living and 
dead, of the American church, not to speak of minis- 
ters equally loyal to the truth in the church to which I 
have the honor to belong, and in other branches of the 
great Presbyterian Church throughout the world. 

This impression was deepened as I listened to the 
closing argument of Colonel McCook, in which he did 
not attempt to refute the statements and arguments of 
Dr. Briggs, but contented himself mainly with reiter- 
ating statements which to an unbiassed onlooker, the 
address of Dr. Briggs had wholly disproved. In any 
particular in which Colonel McCook did reargue the 
case, his reasoning seemed strangely fallacious. Take 
the following as an example. Dr. Briggs had been 
charged with heresy for having used certain words 
which appeared to teach heresy. In his defence he 
showed that a wrong construction had been put upon 
his words and explained their real meaning, and the 
sense in which they were used. Other words of his 
which he acknowledged had been correctly under- 
stood, he showed did not teach any doctrine contrary 
to the Westminster standards. In his reply Colonel 
McCook reasoned as follows : — 

"When the sufficiency in form and legal effect of the 
charges and specifications is sustained, it has been decided 
that if the accused uttered the words found in the specifi- 
cations, he is guilty of an offence. Otherwise he would 
not he put on his defence." 



ATTITUDE OF "A STRANGER." 37 

It was plain that Colonel McCook had quite mis- 
taken the meaning of sustaining the " sufficiency in 
form and legal effect " of charges and specifications ; 
he regarded it as equivalent to sustaining the charges 
and specifications themselves. He accordingly rea- 
soned as follows : — 

"What then remained for the Prosecuting Committee 
to prove ? Simply that the accused had written such and 
such words. The merits of the case refer simply to 
the question of fact. But the fact was admitted by the 
accused that he had written the words quoted in the spe- 
cifications. The proof was complete. The verdict (of the 
Presbytery of New York) should have been guilty, and 
the charges and specifications should have been sustained. 
The case on its merits is a jury case. It is a question of 
fact not of law. The peculiarity of the case before you 
is that the utterances of the accused relied upon by the 
prosecuting committee to sustain the charges have all 
been admitted by him. Did he utter them or not? That 
was the question on its merits. There was no question of 
fact but that. The facts were admitted and the only course 
left to the court was to bring in a verdict of guilty." 

I was impressed at once with the strangeness of 
these statements by Colonel McCook, and with the re- 
markable confirmation they furnished of the impres- 
sion I had reluctantly received from all the preceding 
arguments of the prosecution, namely, that they were 
calculated to " make a man an offender for a word," 
— to condemn him for his language, not as he under- 
stood it and intended it to be understood by others, 
but as the prosecution saw fit to interpret it, — to 



38 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

condemn him upon the accusation simply, and not 
upon the evidence. 

From this time onward I found myself no longer 
neutral as an onlooker. I was, both by conviction as 
to the merits of the case, and from a sense of fairness, 
on the side of the accused. 

This may possibly have had some influence upon 
my opinion of the views and arguments subsequently 
presented by members of the court. Be this as it 
may, those who spoke as representing the views of 
the minority appeared to see the case from the same 
point of view with myself, and to reason correctly, 
while the representatives of the majority seemed to 
view it from a wholly different standpoint and to 
reason accordingly. 

Having had an opportunity, since the close of the 
Assembly, of reviewing at leisure the official report 
of the Assembly with other necessary documents, I 
have found that the impressions formed during the 
trial were not only correct, but that they have been 
much deepened by a careful perusal of all the argu- 
ments and evidence presented before the court : and I 
cannot but believe that, upon a calm review of the whole 
case, in a similar way, all thoughtful and unprejudiced 
persons would be convinced that in condemning and 
suspending the Rev. Professor Briggs, the Washing- 
ton Assembly inadvertently committed a grave mis- 
take, — a mistake which some who voted with the 
majority will soon be ready to acknowledge, and 
which the great American Presbyterian Church will 
not allow to remain long uncorrected. 



FIRST CHARGE. 39 



CHAPTER V. 

first charge: the reason a fountain of divine 
authority. 

THE first charge preferred against Dr. Briggs was, 
that he taught, " that the reason is a fountain 
of divine authority which may and does savingly en- 
lighten men, even such men as reject the Scriptures 
as the authoritative proclamation of the Will of God, 
and reject also the way of salvation through the medi- 
ation and sacrifice of the Son of God as revealed 
therein." This is a statement of Dr. Briggs' alleged 
teaching made by the prosecuting committee. He 
never made such a statement himself. He repudiated 
the above statement as being wholly wrong. What 
he said in his inaugural was that " there are histori- 
cally three great fountains of divine authority, the 
Bible, the Church, and the Reason." From this 
statement of fact on the part of Dr. Briggs, and from 
arguments and illustrations connected with it in his 
inaugural, the prosecuting committee framed the 
above charge. Dr. Lampe on behalf of the prosecut- 
ing committee opened his argument in support of this 
charge with the following assertion, which notwith- 
standing his knowledge of Dr. Briggs' disavowal of it, 
he regarded as a valid inference : — 



40 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

"The Bible, the Church, and the Reason, then, are 
equal in being great fountains of divine authority. The 
quality of divinity and the right of divine authority be- 
long alike to all three ; as such each can be to man an 
infallible guide of life, and speak to him with eternal 
and immutable certainty, so that he can yield to each 
implicit obedience, rest on each with loving certainty, and 
build with joyous confidence." 

This is, at the outset, a remarkable distortion of 
the views of Dr. Briggs, arising from a refusal to 
accept his explanation of the meaning of a single 
word, and a consequent failure to understand the 
scope of his argument. 

Dr. Briggs never said, and does not hold that the 
Bible, the Church, and the Reason are equal. He 
strongly maintains the very reverse of this. Over 
and over, again and again, in language as clear and 
explicit as a man could use, has he denied this equality 
of the Bible, the Church, and the Reason. He has 
repeatedly denied it in his published writings, and he 
denied it again and again on the floor of the General 
Assembly. When he found that his language in 
the inaugural had been misunderstood he hastened 
to correct this misunderstanding in the appendix 
to the second edition of the inaugural in these 
words : — 

" I did not say, and I did not give any one the right 
to infer from anything whatever in the inaugural address 
or in any of my writings that I co-ordinated the Bible, 
the Church, and the Reason." 



EIRST CHARGE. 41 

He denied this misstatement of his teaching again 
in his lectures on the Bible, the Church, and the Rea- 
son, in which he states directly that he has known of 
no one who " has made Bible, Church, and Reason co- 
ordinate, that is, on the same level, in the same order 
of equal independent authority." He uttered these 
sentiments on the floor of the Assembly with all the 
earnestness he could command. How, in the face of 
all these statements and explanations, the prosecuting 
committee could adhere to their statement to the con- 
trary, it is difficult to understand. It seems to be 
accounted for in this way : they regarded their own 
inferences which they drew from the language of Dr. 
Briggs as more trustworthy than Dr. Briggs' own 
understanding of his language. 

The same thing may be true of the next mis- 
statement in this opening utterance of Dr. Lampe ; 
namely, that " each [of the three, the Bible, the 
Church, and the Reason] can be to man an infallible 
guide of life." In his very next sentence Dr. Lampe 
admits that Dr. Briggs does not hold that the three 
are equal, or that each of them is an infallible guide. 
He discloses the fact that this is simply his own 
inference from Dr. Briggs' language. He says : " It 
does not in the least relieve the matter to say that 
the Bible differs from the other two fountains of 
divine authority in being in addition also an infallible 
rule of faith and practice." 

The following quotation from Dr. Briggs' argu- 
ment gives in a word his true position with respect 
to the Bible and the Reason : — 



42 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

"Holy Scripture is that in which the Holy Spirit 
speaks, and He speaks bearing witness by and with the 

Word in the heart of the believer. The Holy Spirit 
speaks to the reason of the godly man through Holy 
Scripture, and gives him the ultimate decision in all 
matters of faith and practice. I never taught any other 
doctrine. If any one thinks that this doctrine conflicts 
with, the doctrine that the reason is a great fountain of 
divine authority, he thinks wrongly and is apart from the 
true lines of logical reasoning. The Confession does not 
here say that the Holy Spirit does not speak in the reason 
apart from Holy Scripture, and, so speaking, speak with 
divine authority. It is that the Holy Spirit is the 
Supreme Judge. He is the Supreme Judge wherever, 
whenever, and in whatever form He speaks. The Con- 
fession is only concerned to teach that it is when speaking 
in the Holy Scriptures that He is the Supreme Judge, 
and that when so speaking the Church must yield alle- 
giance, whatever may have been the decrees of councils 
or opinions of ancient writers, and that private spirits 
must obey, whatever the doctrine of men may have been ; 
in other words, that Church and Reason must yield to 
the Siqyreme Judge, the Holy Spirit, when speaking in 
Holy Scrijjture. I have not said that the Holy Spirit 
speaks the final word in the reason, to which the Church 
and the Bible must yield. I have not exalted the reason 
over the Bible. I am no rationalist. 

"It is the teaching of the Confession to which I sub- 
scribe that the Holy Spirit, when He speaks the infal- 
lible word in Holy Scripture, always speaks through 
the Scriptures to the reason, and by His inward work 
in the heart, in the reason, gives certainty, assurance, 
and infallible conviction of the truth and grace of God. 



FIRST CHARGE. 43 

There is no conflict between reason and Scripture in such 
a sense. There can be none. The Holy Spirit unites 
them in an infallible bond of certainty." 

It might be thought that, in view of this explana- 
tion by Dr. Briggs, the Prosecuting Committee w T ould 
cease to contend that he teaches that the reason is 
a fountain of divine authority on an equality with the 
Bible, and admit that he teaches that reason must 
bow to Holy Scripture as the voice of the Spirit. 
Yet the prosecution adhere to their contention. 
They go farther, and deny that the reason can be 
a fountain of divine authority in any sense. In the 
face of all the explanations made by Dr. Briggs, 
they mistake the meaning of the word " fountain." 
They evidently think it an original source, which 
a fountain never is. There is always a great source 
of supply back of a fountain, by which it is fed. It 
is really only a channel between the original source 
and the outside world. It is in this sense that Dr. 
Briggs uses the word " fountain," as he repeatedly 
explained to the Assembly. He said : "I do not 
mean that there is any original divine authority in 
the human reason, or that there is any original divine 
authority in the Christian Church, but simply that 
they are channels, fountains, media, through which 
God's Holy Spirit speaks to men." At another time, 
in answer to a request he had made that if any 
one had any question to ask he would send it 
up in writing, he received another question regard- 
ing his use of the word " fountain ; " in answering 



44 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

which, before resuming his argument after recess, 
he said : — 

"I have just received a question in regard to the 
matter I have passed over, which, in accordance with my 
promise, I will first answer. 

"'Would you kindly give me your interpretation of 
the word fountain as 3 T ou use it, and oblige ?' 

"I thought I had done this, but it seems exceedingly 
difficult to make my meaning plain. I use ' fountain ' 
not in the sense of the original source ; because, as I have 
said, God alone is the original source. But I use ' foun- 
tain ' in the figurative sense, as that out of which the 
w r aters flow, synonymous with 'channel' and 'medium.' 
God is the only original source. The Bible, the Church, 
and the Keason are channels, means of grace, by which 
God communicates His Divine authority to men. I hope 
I have made myself plain." 

On what ground the prosecution refused to accept 
these explanations, it is difficult to understand. 

The Prosecuting Committee make another mistake 
in the use of words. They seem to regard the Bible 
as an original source, an infallible source, instead of 
an infallible fountain issuing forth from God, the 
great Source of all light and life. Dr. Briggs called 
attention to this mistake, in his defence before the 
Assembly, as follows : — 

"It seems to me that Dr. Lampe and most of my critics 
make the serious mistake of confounding the Original 
Source of all authority with the fountain of authority. 
It seems to me that the prosecution make the Bible the 
infallible source of authority, instead of [regarding God 



FIRST CHARGE. 45 

as] speaking through the Bible, as I do; and there- 
fore they do not understand my position when I say 
that the Eeason and the Church are fountains of divine 
authority." 

Mistaking the meaning of the figurative term " foun- 
tain," the Prosecuting Committee have been unable to 
understand how Dr. Briggs could hold that the Church 
and the Reason can be fountains of authority without 
being at the same time infallible guides, — rules of 
faith and practice like the Bible. Yet they should 
have had no such difficulty. They should have under- 
stood that the Bible is a great fountain of divine 
authority, — the medium through which God speaks 
to man ; and that as such a medium it contains within 
itself all that God has to say to mankind for their 
guidance ; and that the Church and the Reason are 
great fountains of divine authority, — media through 
which God's Spirit speaks to man, without containing 
within them all, or anything approaching to all that 
God has to say to mankind for their guidance. 

So mistaking the use Dr. Briggs makes of the fig- 
urative term "fountain" as applied to the reason, the 
Prosecuting Committee argue against the idea that the 
reason can be a fountain of authority at all. But a 
glance at their reasoning shows that they are arguing 
against the doctrine that the reason is a source of 
divine authority, and not simply a channel. If not 
they are themselves guilty of heresy, as Dr. Briggs 
has shown with great clearness. He shows that the 
Confession distinctly recognizes the reason as a great 



46 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

fountain of divine authority. " The prosecution," he 
says, — 

"shut their eyes to seven chapters of the Confession — 
10, 13, 14, 16, 18, 20, and 26 — when they represent that 
my doctrine of the reason is erroneous. In their original 
charges they state that I ' strike at the vitals of religion ' 
in teaching that the reason is a great fountain of divine 
authority. I do indeed strike at the vitals of religion, hut 
in a sense quite different from that in their minds ; for this 
doctrine so strikes at the vitals of religion that there can 
he no vital religion without it." 

By means of argument based upon the Bible, the 
Confession, and the most sacred experiences of God's 
children, Dr. Briggs makes it plain that the reason is 
a necessary medium through which God speaks to 
man. But his argument is all lost upon his opponents, 
for their minds are full of a different idea, — namely, 
the idea that the reason is not of itself a source of divine 
authority. 

But Dr. Briggs, having announced the simple truth 
that the Spirit of God can and does speak to men 
through their reason, including their consciences and 
whole moral natures, and having shown that it is 
through the reason, in this broad sense, that the Spirit 
applies the Word of God savingly to the hearts and 
lives of men, goes further, and mentions that where 
there is no knowledge of the Word of God, nor access 
to it, as in the case of the heathen, the Spirit of 
God can speak authoritatively to the human soul 
through the reason as it is exercised in consider- 



FIRST CHARGE. 47 

ing such revelations of God as are within its reach. 
When the orthodoxy of this position is challenged by 
his opponents, — and surely it is strange that it should 
have been challenged, — Dr. Briggs feels called upon 
to defend it, and in doing so appeals to the inspired 
Word as follows : — 

"We appeal to the statement of Holy Scripture respect- 
ing those outside the visible Kingdom of God, and there- 
fore excluded from contact with Holy Scripture and Church. 
What shall we say to the teaching of Paul ? ' And He made 
of one every nation of men for to dwell on all the face of the 
earth, having determined their appointed seasons, and the 
bounds of their habitation ; that they should seek God, if 
haply they might feel after Him and find Him, though He 
is not far from each one of us ; for in Him we live and move 
and have our being; as certain even of your own poets have 
said, For we are also His offspring.' Do none of these 
offspring of God among the heathen feel after Him ? Do 
those who feel fail to find Him ? Do none of those the 
root of whose being is God look to the root and become 
conscious of that fountain of life springing up within 
them ? Or are these words of Paul a fancy incapable of 
realization, a dream which finds no counterpart in the 
real heathen man ? 

" What of the preaching of Peter ? ' Of a truth I per- 
ceive that God is no respecter of persons, but in every 
nation he that feareth Him and worketh righteousness is ac- 
ceptable to Him.' Are there no God-fearing men among the 
nations who hold to the ethnic religions ? Are there none 
who give alms and work righteousness ? Was Peter mis- 
taken ? Does God really respect persons, and reject a man 
because he was not born a Hebrew or because he was not 



48 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

educated in Christian lands ? "Was Cornelius the only 
illustration of this profound utterance ? And was he ac- 
cepted simply because he might have been a proselyte ? 

"What of the preaching of Jesus ? 'The men of Nine- 
veh shall stand up in the judgment with this generation 
and shall condemn it because they repented at the preach- 
ing of Jonah; and behold, a greater than Jonah is here. 
The queen of the South shall rise up in the judgment with 
this generation and shall condemn it; for she came from 
the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and 
behold, a greater than Solomon is here.' If the proud 
Assyrians, the inhabitants of Nineveh, were not excluded 
from repentance because they had no Bible and were hos- 
tile to the kingdom of Israel, why should the inhabitants 
of any other metropolis of the ethnic religions be excluded 
if they repent according to the teaching they have ? Is 
the Oriental queen the only potentate who has found God 
by wisdom outside the kingdom ? True, the one heard 
the preaching of Jonah, and the other the wisdom of Solo- 
mon. But there is no evidence that either of them accepted 
Holy Scripture, or united with Holy Church." 

At another stage of his argument Dr. Briggs quoted 
from the Confession, in support of his position, the 
words, — 

" Although the light of nature and the works of crea- 
tion and Providence do so far manifest the greatness and 
power of God as to leave man inexcusable, " and added : 
" Listen to Holy Scripture : ' For when the Gentiles, which 
have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the 
law, these not having the law are a law unto themselves, 
which show the works of the law written in their hearts, 



FIRST CHARGE. 49 

their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts 
the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another.' " 

He also referred to Romans i. 19-20 : — 

" Because that which may be known of God is manifest 
in them ; for God hath showed it unto them. For the in- 
visible things of Him from the creation of the world are 
clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, 
even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are with- 
out excuse." 

The Prosecuting Committee utterly failed to meet 
Dr. Briggs here. They said several things as if 
in reply ; but their statements are so indefinite and 
conflicting that it is difficult, if not impossible, to de- 
termine with any degree of certainty whether they 
accept Dr. Briggs' reasoning and the teaching of 
Scripture regarding the possibility of individuals 
among the heathen being saved by the Spirit work- 
ing through their reason, or whether they reject this 
doctrine. The substance of what they say in reply, 
through Dr. Lampe, is contained in the following non- 
committal and mutually contradictory sentences : 

"That Dr. Briggs conceives of each of these fountains 
of divine authority as capable of imparting [Dr. Lampe 
still thinks of fountains as sources, having the power in 
themselves of imparting] a saving knowledge of God, is 
evident from his own statements on the subject. He says: 
' Unless God's authority is discerned in the forms of the 
reason there is no ground upon which any of the heathen 
could ever have been saved, for they know nothing of 
4 



50 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

Bible or Church. If they are not savingly enlightened 
by the Light of the world in the forms of the reason the 
whole heathen world is lost forever.' (Inaug. 2d ed. pp. 
88, 89.) The divine authority in the reason therefore 
does savingly enlighten, in the view of Dr. Briggs." 

"The facts [says Dr. Lampe] that God can give evi- 
dence of himself to the man's soul, and that the man has 
the power of certifying truth, that he can receive commu- 
nications from God, and be the subject of gracious influ- 
ences, show indeed, that as created in the image of God, 
man is endowed with a moral nature, but does not at 
all prove that his reason is a great fountain of divine 
authority." 

If Dr. Lampe had grasped the proper meaning of 
the word " fountain," he would have seen that this 
reasoning is self-contradictory. It both accepts Dr. 
Briggs' view and rejects it. But neither of the above 
quotations from Dr. Lampe's argument gives any 
definite information as to whether the Prosecuting 
Committee agree with Dr. Briggs' view of the pos- 
sible salvation of a heathen without the Bible. But 
how about the following ? — 

" Christ is supreme in the Church and in all matters of 
faith and life. But we know nothing about Him except 
through the Bible story. The truth by means of which 
He saves and assures His people is treasured up in the 
Scriptures so that we are shut up to them, both for a sav- 
ing knowledge of God and for assurance. The Bible 
alone tells us what we need to know about God, ourselves, 
the plan of salvation, our duty, and the conditions of 
eternal life and destiny. For this reason the Bible alone, 



FIRST CHARGE. 51 

as against the Church and Reason, gives light in the moral 
and spiritual realm." 

This quotation seems to indicate plainly that in the 
opinion of the Prosecuting Committee there is no sal- 
vation for any one apart from a personal knowledge 
of the Scriptures, — that all the heathen, not having 
access to the written Word of God, must be lost. That 
this is the view of the committee would seem to be 
confirmed by this further statement by Dr. Lampe : 

"The Scripture expressly declares that men by wisdom 
have not known God. History shows that to be abso- 
lutely true. Reason, unaided by revealed truth, has 
never been able to bring man out of the bondage of sin to 
God. And therefore ' it pleased God by the foolishness of 
preaching to save them that believe.' God begets men to 
a new life by the word of truth and saves them by the 
belief of that truth ; for how shall they believe on him of 
whom they have not heard, and how shall they hear with- 
out a preacher ? " (Bom. x. 14.) 

This would seem to leave no doubt as to the view 
of the Committee. But to our surprise, in the 
very next sentence Dr. Lampe takes it all back, 
shifts his argument to a different point of the com- 
pass, and sets out to meet a wholly different issue, 
as follows : — 

" Any discussion in respect to the salvation of infants, 
incapables, and exceptional cases of heathen through the 
working of the Divine Spirit is immaterial here; no 
question is raised in the charges in reference to them. 



52 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS- 

The matter in hand is wholly different. Can one having 
the Bible and rejecting it find the way to God through 
either Church or Reason? " 

This cannot but be regarded as a very unsatisfac- 
tory way of reasoning. Before taking up this new 
question Dr. Lampe has raised, let us try to get our 
bearings. Let us have something definite as to the 
supremacy of Christ and the salvation of individuals 
through Him apart from a knowledge of written 
revelation. We know that Christ is the only Re- 
deemer of mankind ; that " there is none other name 
under heaven given among men whereby we must be 
saved." But we are taught also that it is not an accu- 
rate knowledge of all the facts connected with the life 
and death of Jesus that saves ; nor is it a perfect 
acquaintance with the plan of redemption revealed in 
Christ ; but it is that intimate relation of the heart 
and life to God which, whether man fully understands 
the basis of it or not, the name of Jesus and that alone 
has made it possible either for man to enter into or for 
God to accept. When God calls little children away 
from this world to Himself , we believe they are saved, 
though they never understood or even heard the 
precious name ; yet we believe their salvation is at- 
tributable solely to the fact that Jesus is the " One 
Mediator between God and men." When a heathen 
who has never heard the gospel preached reads care- 
fully by the light of nature until he learns to under- 
stand something of the invisible things of God by the 
things that are made, and in his consciousness of 



FIRST CHARGE. 53 

guilt in the sight of his Maker becomes the subject 
of conviction of sin through the power of that Spirit 
who worketh even as the wind bloweth, confesses his 
sin in the sight of Heaven, seeks forgiveness of the 
Great God, reposes confidence in Him, and manifests 
his faith by working righteousness, we are taught to 
believe that God, in accordance with His own plan of 
redemption which He perfectly understands, can ac- 
cept that man's faith, even though the man himself 
may not properly understand the reason why. We 
know that saving faith does not " stand in the wis- 
dom of men, but in the power of God ; " that salva- 
tion is not based upon works, whether of the hands or 
of the head, but upon Divine wisdom and grace ; and 
that the essential thing on man's part is that u faith 
which worketh by love," — faith, not in a plan, but in 
a person ; confidence, not in a creed, but in God. 

This is a Scriptural and orthodox statement of the 
doctrine at issue. It is in accord with the Westmin- 
ster Confession, chapter v., section iii., which states 
that " God, in His ordinary providence, maketh use of 
means, yet is free to work without, above, and against 
them, at His pleasure." It agrees also with chapter x., 
section iv., where it is set forth that men not profess- 
ing the Christian religion cannot be saved in any other 
way whatsoever than through Christ, " be they ever 
so diligent to frame their lives according to the light 
of nature and the law of the religion they do profess ; 
and to assert and maintain that they may is very per- 
nicious and to be detested." How, then, are we to 
understand the first sentence of the Confession, which 



54 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

affirms that the light of nature and the works of crea- 
tion and providence " are not sufficient to give that 
knowledge of God and of His will which is necessary 
unto salvation ? " We are to understand these words 
to mean, first, that the light of nature and the works 
of creation and providence are not sufficient to save 
men apart from the atoning work of Jesus Christ ; 
second, that even though, through Christ and by the 
working of His Spirit, they may be the means of 
saving grace to some individuals, they are not suffi- 
cient, in the ordinary course of providence, and the 
ordinary working of the Holy Spirit, to cause all man- 
kind, or even any considerable number of our race, 
to repent and turn unto God ; and third, that they 
are not sufficient, as a revelation of the will of God, 
" for the more sure establishment and comfort of 
the Church against the corruption of the flesh and 
the malice of Satan and of the world ; " in other 
words, they are not sufficient as " a rule of faith and 
practice." 

This is the doctrine taught by Professor Briggs. It 
is the doctrine taught by orthodox ministers in the 
several branches of the great Presbyterian Church. 
It is possibly the doctrine held by the members of 
the Prosecuting Committee themselves, though it may 
have been obscured to them for the moment by their 
confusion of terms and their inadvertent misapplica- 
tion of Scripture texts ; for example, by taking the 
phrase " the world by wisdom knew not God " to 
mean that no individual of the human family has 
ever been saved without a personal knowledge of 



FIRST CHARGE. 55 

Holy Scripture, or taking the words "faith eometh 
by hearing" to mean that faith can come only by 
hearing in the literal sense of the word. 

Having arrived at a definite understanding regard- 
ing this important question, which the Prosecuting 
Committee discussed for a time and then abandoned 
as immaterial, saying that no question is raised in 
the charges in reference to it, we turn to the consid- 
eration of what Dr. Lampe calls the " wholly differ- 
ent" "matter in hand," namely, "Can one having the 
Bible and rejecting it find the way to God through 
either Church or Reason ? " This question was neither 
raised nor discussed by Dr. Briggs. It is raised by 
the Prosecuting Committee, their implication being 
that Dr. Briggs would answer it in the affirmative. 
This is one of the inferences they draw from their 
view of his argument. 

Dr. Briggs was incidentally dealing with the ques- 
tion, May one who fails to find religious certainty by 
his use of the Bible find it through the processes of 
the reason ? And lie instanced Martineau as one who 
claimed that he did, — " that he found God enthroned 
in his own soul." The scope of Dr. Briggs' argument 
shows that he believed that Martineau may have 
been right in this opinion of the way in which he had 
found certainty. 

The prosecution claim that, as they have learned 
from Martineau's writings that he is one of those who 
"reject the Scriptures as the authoritative proclama- 
tion of the will of God, and the way of salvation 
through the mediation and sacrifice of the Son of 



56 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

God as revealed therein," Dr. Briggs must be held as 
arguing that one who rejects the Scriptures can find 
the way to God through the reason. 

Dr. Briggs replies that the question of Martineau's 
acceptance or rejection of the Bible was not what was 
before his mind in adducing the case of Martineau as 
an illustration of a man finding religious certainty 
through the forms of the reason, and intimates that 
if this view of Martineau's belief be emphasized then 
the illustration he has used is a bad one. But, as 
Dr. Briggs remarks, " a bad example may discredit a 
proposition, but it does not disprove it." It may still 
be true that a man who fails to find religious certainty 
by his use of the Bible may find it by the use of his 
reason. Not only may a man reach certainty in this 
way, but many do. This is a matter of Christian 
experience. 

I did not find religious certainty by my direct read- 
ing and study of the Bible. The fault was no doubt 
my own, but the fact remains. The entrance of God's 
Word gave me light, but not certainty. The light that 
was in me was darkness. The natural man did not 
receive the things of the Spirit of God. Doubts arose 
in my mind as I read the Word ; and the more I read, 
the more numerous my doubts seemed to become. 
The plainest statements of the Bible were dark to me. 
I turned and conferred with men who seemed to know 
the way to God. I listened to their experiences and 
reasoning. I reasoned with them and against them, 
and often felt that I had the best of the argument. I 
read the works of noted divines, and reasoned with 



FIRST CHARGE. 57 

their writings before me, often reasoning against their 
reasoning. I finally took to reasoning with myself, 
and with God in whose existence I believed, though 
I could not understand His Word, nor trust Him as 
my Friend. It was while thus musing and reasoning 
alone, amid the darkness of night, that I found cer- 
tainty by finding God. And, strangely enough, it was 
not by my recalling any particular passage of His 
blessed Word that my doubts were dispelled, but it 
was by thinking of His goodness in the works of His 
hands round about me, and in the heavens above my 
head. Not till then did I see Him revealed in Christ 
as my Friend. From that moment my heart was at 
peace with God. Possibly another would express it 
better by saying, " I found God enthroned in my 
own soul." By God's grace I did not reject the Bible 
and trust to reason alone, as Martineau is alleged to 
have done. On the contrary, I found the Scriptures 
to be a full and clear revelation of that which had first 
dawned upon my mind through the contemplation of 
nature, namely, the simple truth, " God loves you." 
I need not speak of how much I have learned to 
prize and love the blessed Word since that experi- 
ence of many years ago. Such an experience is not 
unique ; it has been the experience of thousands ; 
and it illustrates the unquestionable truth that God 
places great honor upon the poor remnant of likeness 
to Himself that still remains in sinful man, and that 
man's reason, including his whole moral nature, is a 
fountain, channel, or medium through which the Spirit 
of God conveys religious certainty to many a soul. 



58 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

But even if the Prosecuting Committee accept this 
as a confirmation of the correctness of Dr. Briggs' 
view, they will still fall back upon the last offence 
they allege against Dr. Briggs under this first charge. 
It is an offence on the score of overmuch charity, but 
appears to be none the less offensive to the prosecu- 
tion on this account. It is stated in these words : 
" Dr. Briggs would not refuse these rationalists a 
place among the company of the faithful." This has 
reference to such men as Martineau, — men who, 
whatever may be their errors of belief, fear God and 
work righteousness. The' prosecution, as represented 
by Dr. Lampe, appear willing to admit of exceptional 
cases of salvation among the heathen ; then surely 
their charity should be great enough to admit of 
examples of God's saving mercy being extended to 
devout persons among the rationalists. I shall never 
forget how noble that great man, the late venerable 
Dr. Charles Hodge of Princeton, seemed when, 
after exposing the heresies of one of the greatest of 
rationalists, he added, "But I have no doubt he is 
now singing the praises of Christ in heaven." On 
being questioned as to how this could be, since he 
denied Christ on earth, his answer was that " his 
heart was right ; it was only his head that was wrong. 
He called Jesus a man, and thought He was only 
man, but he gave Him such homage as could be paid 
only to a God." 

Would that all who imagine they are treading 
in the footsteps of the venerable Princeton divine, 
when they are contending only for what they believe 



FIRST CHARGE. 59 

to be soundness in the faith, could have the breadth 
of view and largeness of heart of that great man. 
Soundness in the faith is only part of the soundness 
which God's Word enjoins. We are to be " sound 
in faith, in charity, in patience ; " and here also " the 
greatest of these is charity." 

In view of what Dr. Briggs has said of the suprem- 
acy of the Holy Scriptures in the hands of the Spirit, 
and of its being necessary for the reason to yield to 
their authority as the voice of God, and of the way 
in which the Spirit addresses and assures the reason 
through the Word when the Word has been read or 
heard, no one can rightly accuse him of intending to 
teach by the case of Martineau that he believes that 
Martineau must have found certainty through the 
reason in opposition to the teaching of the Word of 
God ; much less can it be claimed that he has taught, 
as the prosecution, by misinterpreting one of his illus- 
trations, have charged him with teaching, that the 
reason is a fountain of divine authority which may 
and does of itself savingly enlighten men, or through 
which men are savingly enlightened independently of 
the mediation and sacrifice of the Son of God. 

That this is far indeed from being his teaching 
will become still more apparent as we review the cog- 
nate doctrine, — " The Church as a fountain of divine 
authority." 



60 TRIAL OF DIt. BRIGGS. 



CHAPTER VI. 

SECOND CHARGE: THE CHURCH A FOUNTAIN OF DIVINE 
AUTHORITY. 

THE second charge brought against Dr. Briggs by 
the Prosecuting Committee is that he teaches 
"that the Church is a fountain of divine authority, 
which, apart from the Holy Scripture, may and does 
savingly enlighten men." 

All that has been said of the Committee having 
persisted in misapprehending the meaning of the word 
" fountain " in connection with the first charge applies 
also to this second charge. Just what meaning they 
attach to the words " apart from the Holy Scripture " 
is not quite clear. Do they mean, without the actual 
use of the Bible as a book ; or do they mean that Dr. 
Briggs teaches that the Christian Church may reject 
the Holy Scriptures and all their teachings, and 
by some power treasured up in the Church itself, 
apart even from the work of the Spirit, still sav- 
ingly enlighten men ? The latter appears to be their 
meaning. But this is a doctrine Dr. Briggs utterly 
repudiates. It is one of the mistaken inferences 
which the Committee have drawn from their miscon- 
ception of the meaning of his words and the scope 
of his argument. 



SECOND CHARGE. 61 

It is not strange that Dr. Briggs spoke warmly 
against having such a doctrine imputed to him. 
He resented this imputation and dismissed it as 
unworthy of consideration. " I admit," he said, " the 
statements that ' the reason is a fountain of divine 
authority,' and ' the Church is a fountain of divine 
authority,' but I deny all the rest of the doctrines 
attributed to me in the form and in the language 
in which the prosecution state them in these two 
charges. They do not prove and they cannot prove 
from the inaugural that men who reject the Scrip- 
tures and the salvation through Jesus Christ are 
savingly enlightened by the Reason or by the Church. 
There are no express statements to this effect in 
the inaugural. There are no statements which by 
logical deduction involve such conclusions. You can- 
not hold me responsible for any inferences made from 
my statements by the prosecution, or by yourselves, 
whether such inferences appear valid to you or not. 
There are certain invalid assumptions which the pros- 
ecution are forced to make before they can con- 
vince you, even by indirection, of the validity of 
such inferences. I shall waste no time in an at- 
tempt to expound the doctrines which have been 
invented by the prosecution and wrongly attributed 
to me." 

But Dr. Briggs still found it necessary to meet the 
contention of the Committee that it is an offence to 
say that the Church is a fountain of divine authority. 
In doing so he used the following unmistakable lan- 
guage : — 



62 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

"The Church has no divine authority in itself apart 
from God. Its divine authority is in that its chief insti- 
tutions were divinely appointed, and that these divinely 
appointed institutions are the ordinary channels of divine 
grace. The church is a fountain of divine authority. The 
divine authority flows from God Himself as the sole original 
fountain head and ultimate source, through the fountain of 
the Church, and distributes its healing, life-giving streams 
through all its ministries. 

"The Westminster Confession clearly shows that the 
visible Church is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ; 
that He ' hath given the ministry oracles and ordinances 
of God ' unto it; and ' doth by His own presence and Spirit 
make them effectual.' . . . Whatever this court may 
conclude, I declare that the statement of the Confession is 
a true statement. There is divine authority in the Church ; 
it is Christ's kingdom. He reigns over it. He inhabits 
it by His Spirit. He makes its institutions efficacious. 
He grants access to Himself through His Church. Our 
Presbyterian fathers rejoiced in such access. Their de- 
scendants enjoy this unspeakable privilege. Are we to be 
robbed of our birthright ? Are you ready to banish from 
the official doctrine of the Presbyterian Church the wit- 
nessing Spirit, the indwelling Christ, and the living God 
in order to incase the Holy Trinity within the covers of a 
book ? Shall we destroy the Church in order to exalt the 
Bible ? " 

In the same connection Dr. Briggs showed that the 
Scriptural and Confessional doctrine regarding the 
sacraments proves the Church to be a great channel 
of divine authority. 

But the Prosecuting Committee appeared to reject 



SECOND CHARGE. 63 

all these statements and to deny the validity of all 
this reasoning. Yet they did not attempt to reply to 
the statements or refute the reasoning. They simply 
dismissed the matter with this assertion : " The labored 
argument made by Dr. Briggs in his defence to show 
that according to the teaching of both the Bible and 
the standards, the Church and the Reason are great 
fountains of divine authority, is wide of the mark and 
wholly unsuccessful." Why it should be thought wide 
of the mark it is difficult to see, when the question at 
issue was, Is the Church, as an institution, a fountain, 
channel, or medium through which God speaks with 
authority to man ? If his argument be thought un- 
successful and inconclusive, it can easily be supple- 
mented with undeniable proof from all parts of sacred 
Scripture, not to speak of the seven chapters on the 
Church in the Confession of Faith, to which the prose- 
cution have made no reference ! 

Can we hear God saying to Abraham, as He founds 
the Jewish Church in him and his family, " In blessing 
I will bless thee and in multiplying I will multiply thy 
seed as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which 
is upon the seashore : And thy seed shall possess the 
gate of his enemies : And in thy seed shall all the na- 
tions of the earth be blessed," and say that the Church 
is not a fountain of divine authority ? Can we recall 
the fact that it was through the Church thus founded 
and consecrated that Christ came and the whole 
written Word of God was given to mankind, and not 
believe that the Church is a channel of divine authority, 
the very medium through which God Himself came 



64 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

down to man ? Can we hear Paul speaking of the 
Church as the body of Christ, " the fulness of Him 
that filleth all in all ? " or can we hear John speaking 
of the Church as the bride of Christ, joining with the 
Spirit in crying " Come," and refuse to believe that 
the Church is a fountain of divine authority ? And 
what shall we say of the teaching of Jesus Himself as 
He says to the first members of the Christian Church : 
" Ye are the light of the world ; " " Ye are my wit- 
nesses ; " " Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, 
baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the 
Son and of the Holy Ghost ; teaching them to observe 
all things whatsoever I have commanded you ; and 
lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the 
world. Amen." Can any believer in the Lord Jesus 
Christ read these words and deny that the Church is a 
fountain of divine authority ? 

The unsoundness of the position taken by the prose- 
cution is made still more apparent by the violence they 
do to Scripture in their attempt to maintain their 
position. Think, for example, of the incorrectness of 
such statements as the following made by Dr. Lampe 
on behalf of the Committee : " Christ and the Xew 
Testament writers invariably appeal to the Holy Scrip- 
tures as the ultimate authority for the settlement of 
all religious and moral questions ; " " With Christ and 
the Apostles the Bible alone held the place of absolute 
and final authority. They never appeal to either 
Church or Reason, but brought both Church and 
Reason to the bar of Scripture for judgment and 
light." 



SECOND CHAKGE. 65 

How utterly at variance these statements are with 
the plain facts of Scripture ! Have the prosecution 
forgotten our Saviour's words in the 18th chapter of 
Matthew, " Tell it unto the Church " ? Does our Lord, 
in giving directions as to the settlement of a moral 
question in that passage, make no appeal to the Church ? 
Does He appeal to the Old Testament Scriptures as 
" the ultimate authority for the settlement " of that 
moral question ? No, He does not enjoin the offended 
brother to settle the question by reading the law, the 
prophets, or the psalms to his offending brother ; but 
He bids him tell it to the Church, and He makes the 
Church's authority final : " If he neglect to hear the 
Church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a 
publican." Then, as if to impress upon his followers 
the great solemnity and real divinity of the Church's 
authority, Jesus adds these words : " Verily I say unto 
you, whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound 
in heaven ; and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth 
shall be loosed in heaven." The Westminster divines 
based section ii. of chapter xxx. of the Confession 
of Faith upon this solemn utterance. 

Or could anything be a more direct contradiction 
of these remarkable assertions made by the prosecu- 
tion regarding Christ and His Apostles than the fol- 
lowing from the 5th chapter of First Corinthians : 
" For I, verily, being absent in body but present in 
Spirit, have already, as though I were present, judged 
him that hath so wrought this thing, in the name of 
our Lord Jesus, ye being gathered together and my 
spirit, ivith the poiver of our Lord Jesus, to deliver 

5 



66 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

such a one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, 
that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord 
Jesus." 

Among the last words Jesus spake to His disciples, 
if not the very last before His ascension, were these : 
" But ye shall receive power when the Holy Ghost is 
come upon you, and ye shall be my witnesses, both 
in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and unto 
the uttermost parts of the earth." 

Members of the prosecution themselves have no 
doubt often, in the discharge of solemn ecclesiastical 
functions, prefaced their official acts with such words 
as these : " In the name and by the authority of Jesus 
Christ, the King and Head of the Church." 

The doctrine taught by the Rev. Dr. Briggs, and 
charged against him as heretical, is so manifestly both 
Scriptural and Confessional that proving it seems a 
work of supererogation. Yet it is a fundamental and 
very sacred doctrine, and when it is denied there is need 
for lifting it into prominence, lest some should grieve 
away the Spirit of God by lightly esteeming the Zion 
which the Lord hath founded, the Jerusalem which He 
has graven upon the palms of His hands, and whose 
walls are continually before Him, the Heaven-created 
fountain through which the benefits of Christ's re- 
demptive work are to be communicated to the whole 
world, the God-ordained institution without whose 
agency the inspired Word itself might lie unheeded, 
and fail to accomplish the thing whereto God sent it. 

The prosecution further claimed that Dr. Briggs 
was guilty of an offence in saying that the majority of. 



SECOND CHARGE. 67 

Christians from the Apostolic age have found God 
through the Church. His language, as quoted by them 
in this connection, is : " Martyrs and saints, fathers 
and school-men, the profoundest intellects, the saint- 
liest lives, have had this experience ; institutional 
Christianity has been to them the presence-chamber 
of God." 

This is a simple statement of fact. It is true that 
the majority of Christians from the Apostolic age 
have found God through the Church and not directly 
through the written Word. This is true of the majority 
of those who find God savingly to-day. The Bible is 
not given a chance to be the direct means of savingly 
enlightening men. It is but little read by the great 
majority of the people of any country. It is read and 
taught more perhaps in our day than in any previous 
age. Portions of it are statedly read and discoursed 
upon in the church and Sabbath-school, and occasion- 
ally in the home. There are a few pious hearts in 
every Christian community who peruse the Bible with 
silent delight day by day for the comfort it brings 
them. There are others who search the Scriptures 
more critically, and make the interpreting and ex- 
pounding of them the chief work of their lives. But, 
after all, how many of the representatives of our 
religion have read the Bible once from beginning to 
end ? The treatment they give the Bible is altogether 
peculiar. They speak of the book in the most com- 
plimentary and reverential terms. They call it the 
Bible! — the Book of Books!— the Word of God! 
They fear it, and fight for the idea of its sacred- 



68 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

ness. They do everything, in short, which the most 
zealous devotees should be expected to do ; but the 
one thing which, as intelligent men, they should be 
expected to do, they do not ; namely, read the book. 
That they occasionally read parts of it cannot be 
denied. That they imagine they have in some way 
acquired a correct knowledge of what it teaches is 
equally unquestionable. That they actually have such 
a knowledge is another matter. What a large propor- 
tion of nominally Christian people know about the 
Bible has been learned at second hand and not from 
independent study. Their religious knowledge is, to 
all intents and purposes, traditionary. It has come 
down to them mainly through oral instruction, and 
through the writings of those who are supposed to 
have studied the Bible so thoroughly as to be able 
to give the substance of it in their own words. Men 
who would be shocked at the thought of living from 
year to year without a Bible in their homes will live 
contentedly from the beginning to the end of their 
whole lifetime, without ever reading the Bible once 
throughout. The Book is sacred in their eyes only 
in an outward and material sense, and is of value to 
them as a fetich is of value to a heathen. It is ex- 
pected to banish sin as a piece of cedar wood will 
banish moths. It is relied on for salvation as the 
Ark of the Covenant of the Lord was relied upon in 
the disastrous fight with the Philistines. 

With the Bible thus neglected and misused, how do 
the majority of Christians find God but through the 
Church ? This is the doctrine of the Westminster 



SECOND CHARGE. 69 

standards : " The Spirit of God maketh the reading, 
but especially the preaching of the Word, an effectual 
means of convincing and converting sinners, and of 
building them up in holiness and comfort through 
faith unto salvation." (Shorter Catechism, Q. 89.) 
Preaching is not using the Scriptures directly. It is 
one of the distinctive functions of the Church. There 
may not be one sentence from the Bible in the whole 
discourse. As a matter of fact, Scripture statements 
do not form more than the hundredth part of the 
average gospel sermon. 

But the Westminster standards teach that there are 
other " effectual means of salvation " besides the 
Word, one of which is the sacraments. Their answer 
to the question " How do the sacraments become 
effectual means of salvation?" is, " The sacraments 
become effectual means of salvation, not from any vir- 
tue in them, or in him that doth administer them ; 
but only by the blessing of Christ, and the working 
of His Spirit in them that by faith receive them" 
(Shorter Catechism, Q. 91), or, to quote the answer as 
it is given in the Larger Catechism, Q. 161, " The 
sacraments become effectual means of salvation, not 
by any power in themselves, or any virtue derived 
from the piety or intention of him by whom they are 
administered, but only by the working of the Holy 
Ghost, and the blessing of Christ, by whom they are 
instituted." Yet the Prosecuting Committee deny 
that the Church is a great fountain of divine authority, 
and that the sacraments of the Church, and insti- 
tutional Christianity as a whole, have been to 



70 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

the majority of Christians the presence-chamber of 
God! 

If further testimony were needed against the heresy 
of this denial, it would be easy to furnish it. We 
cannot tell all the ways in which the sacraments 
Baptism and the Lord's Supper bring Christians near 
to God, but there are some outward ways with which 
every one who has had the care of souls is familiar. 
Here is a pastor's testimony : — 

" Among the many whom I have seen come out of dark- 
ness into light, the majority were led, not by means of the 
direct reading of the Word, but by means of the sacraments, 
and especially the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. It 
was in connection with its observance that they were first 
led to think seriously regarding their relation to God. It 
was by committing themselves to a godly life in presence 
of others, by sitting at the Lord's table, that they were 
most powerfully helped to live consistent lives. A single 
example may serve to illustrate both these statements. 

On a Monday evening, following a Communion Sabbath, 
there called on me a much respected merchant of the city 
in which I was then a pastor. He spoke with his usual 
calmness of manner, but was in great disquietude of 
spirit. ' I have been greatly troubled, ' said he, ' ever 
since I was at church yesterday morning. I sat in the 
same pew with my wife, but the bread and the cup were 
passed by me to her, as I am not a communicant. I said 
to myself then, and I have been saying it ever since, 
What does this mean ? And how long is it to last ? 
But I am not fit to be a communicant.' I spoke to him 
of the love of Jesus and of His willingness to receive him, 
and make the act of confessing Him before men a means 



SECOND CHARGE. 71 

of grace to him; and by God's blessing that dear member 
of my flock, with whom God's Spirit was thus striving, 
came out into the light. Two months later as I received 
him to the Communion of the church and saw him sitting 
with his beloved wife at the table of the Lord, I said 
within myself, Here is another example of that meaning 
of the Lord's Supper which Jesus evidently had in mind 
as He prayed at the time He instituted it, ■ — ' that they 
all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, 
that they also may be one in us : that the ivorld may 
believe that thou hast sent me.' When last heard from 
that Christian brother, who was thus brought out of 
darkness into light by means of the sacrament of the 
Supper, was rejoicing in the light and witnessing a good 
confession." 

How many thousands have been brought to Christ 
through simply witnessing the observance of the 
Lord's Supper, and to how many thousands of thou- 
sands both Baptism and the Lord's Supper have been 
" effectual means of salvation," in those hidden ways 
perhaps more directly referred to in the Westminster 
Confession and Catechisms, eternity alone can reveal. 
But enough has been said in proof and illustration of 
this precious doctrine, for adhering to which Dr. 
Briggs was condemned! 

The prosecution quote as part of his offence in this 
connection these words of Dr. Briggs regarding the 
above doctrine : " It is difficult for many Protestants 
to regard this experience as any other than pious 
illusion and delusion." I should hardly have thought 
this statement correct, had not the Prosecuting Com- 



72 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

mittee, if not the majority of the Assembly furnished 
an actual illustration of its truth. But I cannot doubt 
that, on carefully examining this doctrine, they will 
gladly reverse their judgment. 

Another proof of Dr. Briggs' alleged heresy relied 
on by the prosecution is that he has said that " New- 
man could not reach certainty through the Bible, 
striving never so hard," but that he found God 
through the Church. All that need be said regard- 
ing this is, first, that it was a statement by Dr. 
Briggs of what Newman himself claimed to be the 
fact in his case ; and, second, that there is some re- 
semblance in this alleged fact between Newman's case 
and that of his great evangelical cotemporary Charles 
H. Spurgeon. Spurgeon's experience, as often referred 
to by himself, was that before his conversion he waited 
on ordinances, read his Bible, and reasoned about the 
things of God, but could find no peace ; and that it 
was on going into a church and hearing a sermon 
preached from the old familiar words, " Look unto 
me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth ; for I 
am God and there is none else," that he found peace. 
One would almost think that in arranging and con- 
trolling the circumstances connected with the conver- 
sion of His honored servant, Spurgeon, the Lord had 
before Him the present unhappy controversy in one 
of the great branches of His Church, and that He 
so ordered the manner of Spurgeon's conversion as 
to show to all His people how jealous He is of the 
honor of His Church, as well as of His Word and 
the moral nature with which He has endowed His 



SECOND CHARGE. 73 

intelligent creature, — man. Spurgeon did not reach 
certainty through his use of the Word alone. God 
saw that both the Church and the Reason were also 
honored before He allowed His servant's feet to be 
set upon the Rock. 

It was not in precisely the same way indeed that 
Newman found peace, for u there are diversities of 
operations ; " yet it was through the Church, in some 
sense, that he believed he finally reached certainty. 

This brings us to what may be termed the head and 
front of Dr. Briggs' offending in the opinion of his 
opponents, and of not a few of his friends. Let it be 
stated in the language of the prosecution : — 

" Again he says : ' Spurgeon is an example of the aver- 
age modern evangelical, who holds the Protestant position, 
and assails the Church and Reason in the interest of the 
authority of Scripture. But the average opinion of the 
Christian world would not assign him a higher place in 
the kingdom of God than Martineau or Newman. May 
we not conclude on the whole that these three representa- 
tive Christians of our time, living in or near the world's 
metropolis, have, each in his way, found God and rested 
on Divine authority ? . . . Men are influenced by their 
temperaments and environments which of the three ways 
of access to God they may pursue.' " 

In dealing with these statements of Dr. Briggs, 
which are unfortunately taken out of their setting 
in the inaugural, and away from their context, the 
prosecution inadvertently make mistake after mistake. 
They first say : " Here Dr. Briggs not only teaches that 
men may and do find God savingly through 2li\j one of 



74 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

the three fountains of divine authority." Dr. Briggs 
might have been correct had he said this, but it is not 
what he did say. What he said was that " men are 
influenced by their temperaments and environments 
which of the three ways of access to God they may 
pursue." A glance at the argument in the inaugural 
in which the sentence occurs shows that he does not 
teach that a man must find God savingly only through 
the way of searching for certainty which he mainly 
pursues ; and, in any case, this whole argument pre- 
supposes the atonement made by Christ, and the work 
of the Holy Spirit, as underlying each of the three 
media of authority, as that which makes it possible 
for a man to find access to God through any or all 
of these channels. 

This is the first mistake made by the prosecution 
in dealing with these quotations from the inaugural ; 
and here is the second: " but admits that the Bible, 
as the only way for obtaining salvation and certainty, 
as held by Spurgeon, is the Protestant doctrine." 
There are two errors here : first, Dr. Briggs does 
not admit that Spurgeon held that the Bible is the 
only way of obtaining salvation and certainty, — 
Christ is the only way ; and second, he does not 
admit that holding that the Bible is the only way 
of salvation is the Protestant doctrine. He takes 
Spurgeon as an example of the average modern 
evangelical, who holds the Protestant doctrine ; but 
he claims that the evangelical Protestant doctrine is 
that, while the Bible is " the only infallible rule of 
faith and practice," the Spirit of God, in savingly 



SECOND CHARGE. 75 

enlightening men, and applying the redemption pur- 
chased by Christ, can and does work also through 
the Church and the Reason. This makes the next 
error into which the prosecution fall, in their argu- 
ment in this connection, apparent. It is contained 
in their words : " And therefore, since the Presby- 
terian Church is a Protestant Church, he convicts 
himself of teaching doctrines which are not Presbyte- 
rian." The prosecution here attribute to Dr. Briggs 
premises which he does not hold, and which are, 
therefore, logically false ; and their conclusion is 
accordingly false. 

But what did Dr. Briggs mean by speaking of 
Spurgeon, Martineau, and Newman as three repre- 
sentative Christians ? It was thought by some in 
the Assembly that he had placed the three on the 
same evangelical equality, and had held up Martineau 
and Newman as being as worthy of imitation in all 
respects as Spurgeon. In supposing this they for- 
got the sense in which Dr. Briggs used the word 
" representative," — not as representative of all that 
Christians ought to be, but as representative of the 
three great classes under consideration, — Spurgeon 
representing those who give the highest place theo- 
retically to the authority of the Scriptures ; Martineau 
representing those who give the highest place theo- 
retically to the Reason ; and Newman representing 
those who give the highest place theoretically to the 
Church. 

Some were still further offended by the statement 
that the average opinion of the Christian world would 



76 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

not assign Spurgeon a higher place in the Kingdom 
of God than Martineau or Newman. But Dr. Briggs 
was speaking, not of Presbyterianism, or even Protes- 
tantism, but of historical Christianity, as will be 
remembered by recalling the statement, " There are 
historically three great fountains of Divine Authority." 
It is without question a simple fact, as Dr. Briggs 
showed in his defence, that the Christian world, in the 
sense in which the term was used in the inaugural, 
would not assign Spurgeon a higher place in the King- 
dom of God than Martineau or Newman, whether they 
are right or wrong in their estimate of the religious 
or ecclesiastical greatness of these three eminent 
men. To quote from Dr. Briggs' own language before 
the court : — 

"It may seem strange to some of you that the average 
opinion of the Christian world would not assign him 
(Spurgeon) a higher place in the Kingdom of God than 
Martineau or Newman. But a little reflection ought to 
convince you that it is so. Spurgeon is the hero of the 
Evangelical party in the Church. He was generally 
esteemed to be the greatest preacher of the gospel in our 
generation. His sermons have been of incalculable benefit 
to multitudes. I yield to none in admiration of Spurgeon 
as a master of sacred eloquence. It was my privilege to 
enjoy many times listening to his eloquence, and to know 
a great deal of the work he was doing. But any one who 
understands the state of religious opinion in England 
knows that Spurgeon only represented a party among the 
nonconformists, and that a considerable portion of them 
would not assign him a higher place than Martineau or 
Newman. He lived to find himself in a hopeless minority 



SECOND CHARGE. 77 

in his own denomination, and to separate from the mass 
of nonconformists, whom he accused of being on 'the 
down-grade/ ... In the average opinion of the Church 
of England, Spurgeon would certainly assume the lowest 
place of the three. Among Roman Catholics, Newman 
would have the pre-eminence. Among German Protes- 
tants, Marti neau would hold the highest rank. In North 
America, without doubt Spurgeon is in greatest estima- 
tion. . . . But suppose I make a mistake in statistics, 
and my opinion is wide of the facts, — is such a mistake 
heresy? " 

Any one who perceives the scope of the inau- 
gural will have no difficulty in understanding the 
reference made to Spurgeon, Martineau, and Newman. 
Dr. Briggs was not writing simply for Presbyterians. 
He had not even Evangelical Protestantism alone in 
view. He was taking into view the whole nominally 
Christian world, with all its varying churches, sects, 
and parties. It was not- his purpose to exalt any sect 
or individual at the expense of another. Nor was he 
aiming at making either his own or any other denom^ 
ination more narrowly exclusive, and more intensely 
loyal to its own historic position. He was think- 
ing of possible union rather than division, of peace 
rather than hostility between those of every name 
who are seeking in various ways to be the children of 
the same heavenly Father. He was striving to find 
out what truths were common to all the three great 
classes into which the Christian world is divided. 
His aim being to bring all to rightly acknowledge 
the authority of Scripture, he made "the Authority 



78 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

of Scripture " his theme. As a proper and necessary 
introduction to this theme, he examined " the Church 
and the Reason as seats of Divine authority," " be- 
cause," as he says in the inaugural, " they open our 
eyes to see mistakes that are common to the three 
departments." The Christian scholar who is willing 
to give false systems credit for any good that may be 
in them, and at the same time to honestly admit any- 
thing false that may be in the better system which he 
has the happiness to call his, and who, without relin- 
quishing any essential truth, is searching for a basis 
of religious faith and life broad enough for the whole 
Christian world to unite upon, is surely, in this age of 
vast endeavors and grand achievements, engaged in a 
task which deserves the encouragement of all lovers 
of God and man. 

The last effort to convict Dr. Briggs of heresy by 
means of this second charge is contained in the state- 
ment of the prosecution that according to the views 
of Dr. Briggs we must recognize the Church of Rome 
as a great fountain of Divine authority, able to give 
men, without or above the Bible, a saving knowledge 
of God, and divine assurance. 

I have never regarded the Roman Catholic Church 
as occupying the same plane with evangelical churches ; 
I believe it to be full of errors, and wholly mistaken 
in many of its aims and claims. Yet I am bound 
to acknowledge that all this does not exclude it 
from being part of the visible Church. I believe 
the doctrine taught in section iv., chapter xxv. of 
the Confession: "This Catholic Church hath been 



SECOND CHAKGE. 79 

sometimes more, sometimes less visible. And partic- 
ular churches which are members thereof are more 
or less pure, according as the doctrine of the gospel 
is taught and embraced, ordinances administered, 
and public worship performed more or less purely 
in them." Section v. says : " The purest churches 
under heaven are subject both to mixture and error; 
and some have so degenerated as to become no 
churches, but synagogues of Satan." But no one is 
warranted in applying this last clause to the Roman 
Catholic Church. Section vi., chapter xxv., repre- 
sents the Pope of Rome as Antichrist ; but even if the 
Westminster divines were right in this, — which many 
intelligent Presbyterians question, — that itself would 
not blot the Roman Catholic Church out from being 
part of the visible Church. 

Those who would see the proof of this statement 
have only to look unto Jesus. If ever a church had 
become corrupt, it was the Jewish Church at the 
time of our Lord's advent. Its leaders were hypo- 
crites, a generation of vipers, deceivers, making the 
Word of God of none effect through their tradition, 
shutting up the kingdom of heaven, neither entering 
it themselves nor suffering those to enter who gladly 
would. They were a thousand times more positively 
Antichrist than the leaders in any church of to-day. 
That church which had once been a " well-watered 
garden " had become " a dry ground." Yet it was out 
of that " dry ground " that there sprang the Plant of 
Renown. And Jesus honored that degenerate church. 
He observed its rites ; He kept its laws ; He wor- 
shipped in its synagogues. 



80 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

We know that there are devout followers of Christ 
in the Roman Catholic Church of to-day. We have 
seen them in our homes ; we have known them else- 
where. They may have no Bibles, and may not be 
allowed to read the Bible we would place in their 
hands. They may never have attended any church 
but their own ; yet, full of error though it be, there is 
manifestly truth enough and Divine authority enough 
in connection with that church for the Spirit of God 
to make use of as a means of saving grace to these 
earnest souls, whom you may know by their fruits to 
be true branches of the Living Vine. 

The day has gone by when any minister or member 
of the Presbyterian Church can be justly condemned 
as a heretic for holding the doctrine that the Roman 
Catholic Church is a part of the Church Visible. 

In our review of the Bible, the Church, and the 
Reason as three great fountains of Divine authority, we 
have found that, when properly understood, Dr. Briggs' 
statement is eminently in accord with both Scripture 
and the Westminster standards. 

These three fountains of Divine authority, or means 
by which man, through Christ and under the guidance 
of the Holy Spirit, is led back to God, may be found 
summed up in a single sentence of the Westminster 
Assembly's Shorter Catechism, in the words : " The 
outward and ordinary means whereby Christ com- 
municateth to us the benefits of redemption are 
his ordinances, especially the Word, sacraments, and 
prayer, all which are made effectual to the elect 



SECOND CHARGE. 81 

for salvation." If for "the Word, sacraments, and 
prayer" we substitute "the Bible, the Church, and 
the Reason," to which these three means of grace 
well correspond, we see, as we have seen in other 
ways, that this doctrine for which Dr. Briggs has 
been condemned is the doctrine of the Westminster 
standards. 

The same three fountains of Divine authority are 
also summed up in one brief passage of the Word of 
God (Rom. x. 13-21) : " Whosoever shall call upon the 
name of the Lord shall be saved." This is the reason 
exercised in prayer. " How then shall they call on 
Him in whom they have not believed ? And how 
shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard?" 
This does not exclude the possibility of hearing 
God speaking through His works, and particularly 
through the conscience, reason, and whole moral 
nature of man ; but how, under ordinary circum- 
stances, and in the ordinary exercise of Divine grace, 
can they be expected to hear even through these 
channels without a preacher ? " And how shall they 
preach except they be sent ? " This preaching and 
sending of the preacher is the work of the Church, 
But with the work of the Church the Word comes in ; 
for both the Church's life and preaching are based 
upon the Word. "Even as it is written, 'How beauti- 
ful are the feet of them that bring glad tidings of 
good things!' But they did not all hearken to the 
glad tidings. For Isaiah saith, ' Lord, who hath 
believed our report ? ' So belief cometh of hearing, 
and hearing by the Word of Christ. But I say, did 
6 



82 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

they not hear ? Yes, verily. ' Their sound went out 
into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of 
the world,' " — a quotation from the fourth verse of 
the nineteenth Psalm with reference to God's works, 
confirming the doctrine that men should hear God 
speaking in His works, and exercise faith upon such 
hearing. 

"But I say did Israel not know?" Israel had 
better knowledge than could be derived from nature 
and reason alone, yet did not make as good use of 
it as some among the heathen made of the less 
clear light they possessed. "First, Moses saith: 'I 
will provoke you to jealousy with that which is no 
nation, with a nation void of understanding will I 
anger you.' 

" And Isaiah is very bold and saith : ' I was found 
of them that sought me not ; I became manifest unto 
them that asked not of me.' But as to Israel he saith : 
' All the day long did I spread out my hands unto 
a disobedient and gainsaying people.' " How very 
clearly taught throughout this whole passage is the 
truth that some men, under the influence of the Holy 
Spirit, may find God through the medium of the 
reason, without the written Word, while, without the 
saving influence of the Holy Spirit, others may have 
the Word in their hands or most faithfully preached 
to them, and fail to find God. Is not the former 
of these two facts illustrated by exceptional cases 
among the heathen of to-day ? And is not the lat- 
ter fact only too sadly exemplified in the life and 
conduct of thousands in every Christian land ? 



SECOND CHARGE. 83 

Had Dr. Briggs taught that the Bible alone is a 
fountain, channel, or medium of Divine authority, 
through which mankind are savingly influenced by 
the Spirit of God, and that the Spirit never works 
through the instrumentality of the Church or the 
Reason, either together with or apart from the written 
Word, it would have been right to have charged him 
with teaching heresy. But to convict him of heresy 
for teaching the doctrine regarding the Bible, the 
Church, and the Reason which he does teach, was 
worse than a mistake. The Church should have 
been grateful to him for calling attention to the 
proper relations of these three God-ordained media 
of Divine authority which seem to be so imperfectly 
understood. 



84 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 



CHAPTER Til. 

THIRD CHARGE: INERRANCY OF SCRIPTURE. 

TO use the language of the prosecution, " The 
third charge has reference to the subject of 
inspiration. In it Dr. Briggs is charged with teach- 
ing that errors may have existed in the original text 
of Scripture as it came from its authors. Dr. Briggs 
admits the correctness of the facts stated in the spe- 
cifications, and that the charge correctly states his 
teaching on this point, but denies that it is an 
offence." 

In opening his defence against this charge Dr. 
Briggs said, " I agree to the doctrine that Holy 
Scripture 'is the Word of God written,' 'immediately 
inspired,' and ' the rule of faith and practice.' *' In 
the course of his defence he affirmed his belief in 
" plenary or full inspiration." He further said : " The 
prosecution cite section iv. in order to prove that Holy 
Scripture 'is the Word of God.' There can be no 
doubt of this. ... I can sincerely subscribe to both 
statements, ' is the Word of God ' and ' contains the 
Word of God.' Throughout his whole defence Dr. 
Briggs steadfastly maintained the position he had 
previously held, as indicated by the following answers, 
given by him to questions submitted to him by the 



THIRD CHARGE. 85 

directors of Union Theological Seminary, and used as 
evidence in his trial before the Presbytery of New 
York : — 

Question 1. "Do you consider the Bible, the Church, 
and the Reason as co-ordinate sources of authority ? " 

Answer. "!No." 

Question 2. "Do you believe the Scriptures of the 
Old and Xew Testaments to be the only infallible rule of 
faith and practice ? " 

Answer. "Yes." 

Question 3. "Would you accept the following as a 
satisfactory definition of inspiration : ' Inspiration is such 
a Divine direction as to secure an infallible record of God's 
revelations in respect to both faith and doctrine 9 ?" 

Answer. "Yes." 

Question 4. "Do you believe the Bible inerrant in 
all matters concerning faith and practice, and in every- 
thing in which it is a revelation from God as a vehicle of 
Divine truth, and that there are no errors which disturb 
its infallibility in these matters or in its records of the 
historic events and institutions with which they are 
inseparably connected ? " 

Answer. "Yes." 

Question 5. "Do you believe that the miracles re- 
corded in the Scriptures are due to an extraordinary 
exercise of Divine energy?" 

Answer. "Yes." . 

When a minister of Dr. Briggs' well-known intelli- 
gence and candor could sincerely subscribe to such 
doctrines as these, and could conscientiously subscribe 
to the form of doctrine submitted to Presbyterian 



86 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

ministers at the time of their ordination, the Prose- 
cuting Committee might have been assured that there 
was some misunderstanding on their part as to his 
teaching, when they undertook to convince him and 
convince the whole Church that he held a totally 
different doctrine from that which he intelligently 
and honestly said he held. If he refused to say that 
there were no errors in the autographs or original 
manuscripts of the writers of the Bible, they might 
have been satisfied that he had reasons for such 
refusal, which, when properly understood by them, 
would be found not to conflict with the terms of his 
subscription and his ordination vows. If he believed 
there were errors of a literary and incidental kind in 
the text of Scripture as we now have it, and that 
some of these errors may have been in the original 
manuscripts, they might have known that he regarded 
those unimportant inaccuracies in some such way as 
they were regarded by the late venerable Dr. Charles 
Hodge, of Princeton, when he wrote, in his " Syste- 
matic Theology" (vol. i. p. 170), the words: "No 
sane man would deny that the Parthenon was built 
of marble, even if here and there a speck of sand- 
stone should be detected in its structure. Not less 
unreasonable is it to deny the inspiration of such a 
book as the Bible, because one sacred writer says that 
on a given occasion twenty-four, and another says 
that twenty-three, thousand men were slain." This 
is precisely the view Dr. Briggs holds, and for hold- 
ing which he has been charged with heresy, and 
suspended from the gospel ministry ! 



THIRD CHARGE. 87 

This review might rest here, but the doctrine of the 
Divine inspiration of Holy Scripture is so important a 
doctrine, and so many seemingly conflicting statements 
have been made regarding it in connection with the 
trial of Dr. Briggs, that the question cannot properly be 
dismissed at this point. It is right that lovers of truth 
should review the doctrine in the light of the evidence 
and arguments presented at the trial, and ascertain, if 
possible, whether the views of Dr. Briggs or of the 
prosecution are correct, and what theory of inspiration 
the Assembly intended to endorse. Those who make 
such a review, with the official report of the Washing- 
ton Assembly before them, will find that the point 
above referred to is not the only instance in which Dr. 
Briggs is in agreement, and the prosecution at vari- 
ance, with the venerable Princeton divine, — whom the 
late Dr. Candlish, when both divines were alive, called 
" the greatest of living theologians." 

Those who undertake such a review will find, how- 
ever, that, owing to an almost entire absence of the 
definition of terms, and from the consequent fact that 
technical words and phrases are often used by the 
prosecution in an entirely different sense from that in 
which they are understood by the defendant, the argu- 
ments presented are in some instances such a tissue 
of irrelevancy as a reviewer is seldom called upon to 
deal with, and, if possible, disentangle. 

Every word that clothed a concept regarding which 
there was difference of opinion between the prosecu- 
tion and Dr. Briggs should have been specially con- 
sidered, and its technical meaning clearly defined. 
Failing this, confusion was inevitable. 



88 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

Take the word " inspiration " for example ; what 
does it mean ? 

Here is Dr. Dick's definition of the term : " Inspira- 
tion is an influence of the Holy Spirit upon the under- 
standings, imaginations, memories, and other mental 
powers of the sacred writers by which they were quali- 
fied to communicate to the world the knowledge of 
the will of God." 

Here is a definition of the term by Dr. Charles 
Hodge : " Inspiration was an influence of the Holy 
Spirit on the minds of certain select men, which ren- 
dered them the organs of God for the infallible com- 
munication of His mind and will." 

Neither the Holy Scriptures nor the Westminster 
standards contain any definition of the term. They 
deal with the fact of inspiration and leave the precise 
nature of it to be learned from the exemplification 
which the Scriptures furnish of the exercise of it. 
Consequently no one is bound by any particular defi- 
nition of the term or any particular theory regarding 
it. But when a controversy arises in which the fact 
of inspiration is involved, it is necessary that the con- 
tending parties shall have either a standard definition 
by which to test the correctness of their respective 
theories, or else that each of the parties shall furnish 
a definition of the term as he understands it, that the 
theories of both may be brought to the test of what the 
common faith of the Church, based upon the Word of 
God, regards as the orthodox meaning of the term. 

Dr. Briggs has subscribed to a definition of the term 
" inspiration" which will be seen to be in accord with 



TH1KD CHARGE. 89 

the two given above. It is as follows : " Inspiration is 
such a Divine direction as to secure an infallible record 
of God's revelations in respect to both faith and 
doctrine." 

The prosecution do not accept this definition but 
they furnish no other. An examination of their argu- 
ments, however, shows that they appear to hold quite 
a different doctrine from any of the above, namely, 
the doctrine that inspiration does not extend merely 
to the inspired man's utterances or writings in com- 
municating to the world the knowledge of the will 
of God, but also to his character and to all his 
utterances. They accordingly say : " Inspiration, as 
understood by Dr. Briggs, is clearly not that kind of 
inspiration which will keep the inspired writer from 
making mistakes or telling lies." Their contention 
seems to be that no inspired writer could ever make a 
mistake or tell a lie whether in communicating to the 
world the knowledge of the mind and will of God or at 
other times. They seem to hold that everything re- 
corded in the Bible as the utterance of a man who was 
known to be used at any time as one of the organs of 
God for the infallible communication of His mind and 
will, must always be inherently and absolutely true. 
They think it is heresy to say that an inspired man 
could ever utter anything that was not correct ; or at 
least, that all his utterances recorded in the Scriptures 
must of necessity be correct, whether they are com- 
munications of the mind and will of God or are simply 
the man's own utterances. Dr. Briggs, on the other 
hand, holds that it is only when speaking under the 



90 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

guidance of Divine inspiration, and therefore com- 
municating the mind and will of God, that the in- 
spired speaker or writer is uttering infallible truth. 
At other times and in regard to other matters than 
the revelation of the mind and will of God he may err 
like an ordinary man. 

Who is right in this, Dr. Briggs or the prosecution ? 
Let Dr. Charles Hodge answer. He says that the 
sacred writers — 

"were fully inspired as to all that they teach, whether of 
doctrine or fact. This of course does not imply that the 
sacred writers were infallible except for the special pur- 
pose for which they were employed. They were not im- 
bued with plenary knowledge. As to all matters of 
science, philosophy, and history, they stood on the same 
level with their contemporaries. They were infallible 
only as teachers, and when acting as the spokesmen of 
God. Their inspiration no more made them astronomers 
than it made them agriculturists. Isaiah was infallible 
in his predictions although he shared with his countiymen 
the views then prevalent as to the mechanism of the uni- 
verse. Paul could not err in anything he taught, although 
he could not recollect how many persons he had baptized 
in Corinth." 

A little farther on, in the same connection, Dr. 
Hodge adds : — 

"Nor does the Scriptural doctrine on this subject imply 
that the sacred writers were free from errors in conduct. 
Their infallibility did not arise from their holiness, nor 
did inspiration render them holy. Balaam was inspired, 
and Saul was among the prophets. David committed 



THIRD CHARGE. 91 

many crimes, although inspired to write psalms. Peter 
erred in conduct at Antioch; but this does not prove that 
he erred in teaching. The influence which preserved him 
from mistakes in teaching was not designed to preserve 
him from mistakes in conduct." (Systematic Theology, 
vol. i. p. 165.) 

If this be not sufficient to prove the correctness of 
the position the prosecution once and again almost 
tauntingly attribute to Dr. Briggs, turn to the thir- 
teenth chapter of the First Book of Kings and read 
at the eighteenth verse : — 

"And he said unto him, I also am a prophet as thou 
art, and an angel spake unto me by the Word of the 
Lord, saying, Bring him back with thee into thine house, 
that he may eat bread and drink water. But he lied unto 
him. So he went back with him and did eat bread in his 
house, and drank water. And it came to pass, as they sat 
at the table, that the Word of the Lord came unto the 
prophet that brought him back: and he cried unto the 
man of God that came from Judah, saying, Thus saith 
the Lord, Forasmuch as thou hast been disobedient unto 
the mouth of the Lord, and hast not kept the command- 
ment which the Lord thy God commanded thee, but earnest 
back and hast eaten bread and drunk water in the place, of 
the which He said to thee, Eat no bread, and drink no 
water; thy carcase shall not come into the sepulchre of thy 
fathers." 

And when even that old lying prophet spoke under 
the guidance of Divine inspiration his prediction came 
true. Hereafter the prosecution and all others, should 



92 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

be careful to quote 2 Peter i. 20-21, not as it is in the 
Old (King James') Version of the Bible, but in the 
Revised Version, as follows : " Knowing this first, 
that no prophecy of Scripture is of private interpreta- 
tion. For no prophec) T ever came by the will of man : 
but men spake from God, being moved by the Holy 
Ghost." The Old Version says, " holy men of God 
spake ;" but it is evident from this passage in First 
Kings, as well as other passages that might be cited, 
that men who were not holy sometimes spake as they 
were moved by the Holy Ghost, just as it has been 
made clear also that holy men did not always speak 
as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. They often 
spake as ordinary men, and their utterances, whether 
correct or incorrect, are truthfully recorded when they 
have been chosen to form part of the book which we 
know as, and which truly is, the Word of God. 

AVas the lying utterance of the old prophet in- 
spired of God ? No one will claim that it was, yet it 
is a part of the Sacred Scriptures. Then, is all scrip- 
ture not given by inspiration of God ? Are we to 
regard the rendering of 2 Timothy iii. 16, in the 
Revised Version, as decisive as to this? — the reading 
being, not " All scripture is given by inspiration of 
God," nor " every scripture is inspired of God," as in 
the margin of the Revised Version, but " Every scrip- 
ture inspired of God is also profitable for teaching," 
etc. Shall we adopt this view and say that some 
statements in Scripture are not inspired ? No, by no 
means. But whatever interpretation be put upon 
2 Tim. iii. 16, it is manifest that some parts of Scrip- 



THIRD CHARGE. 93 

ture are not inspired in the same sense in which 
others are ; and it is here that the prosecution have 
fallen into the greatest number of mistakes and the 
greatest confusion. They appear to have treated the 
word " inspiration " as if it were always to be under- 
stood in the same sense, — as if the malicious utter- 
ances of Satan recorded in Holy Scripture were 
inspired in the same sense with the seraphic utter- 
ances of the prophet Isaiah or the apostle John. 

Let us have a definite understanding of what in- 
spiration is, from a careful analysis of the orthodox 
belief regarding it. " Inspiration " in itself is one 
and the same always. It is the special in-breathing of 
the Holy Spirit to qualify men for certain work in 
connection with the speaking and writing of the Holy 
Scriptures and the transmission of them in canonical 
form to mankind as the Word of God. While inspira- 
tion is always the same in this, that it infallibly guides 
the subjects of it in doing the particular work assigned 
them, the work assigned to different inspired men is 
different. 

1. Some men, under the special guidance of the 
Holy Ghost, uttered eternal and unchangeable truth, 
the very mind and will of God. This was true of the 
prophets, apostles, and others who " spake from God, 
being moved by the Holy Ghost." This exercise of 
inspiration was often, if not always, accompanied by 
" revelation," the imparting of knowledge. 

2. Others, under the special guidance of the Holy 
Ghost, recorded with infallible wisdom and truthful- 
ness whatever God designed should be embodied in 



94 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

the Holy Scriptures. It might be said that such men 
selected and wrote as they were moved by the Holy 
Ghost ; yet it was the selecting of what they wrote 
that was infallibly wise, and the recording of it that 
was infallibly true, and not necessarily in every case 
the thoughts recorded. The thoughts and words of 
good men who sometimes spoke incorrectly and un- 
wisely are faithfully recorded when they form part of 
the Holy Scriptures. So are the words, whether wise 
or foolish, of wicked men. So also are the words of 
Satan himself. 

3. Others, under the special guidance of the Holy 
Ghost, collected and arranged the various writings 
that were either spoken or written, or both spoken 
and written, under the guidance of the same Spirit ; 
so that they form the canon of Sacred Scripture. 

It is in the second and third of the above senses 
that the Bible is wholly inspired. Whatever may be 
said of some statements recorded in Scripture, when 
viewed in the light of the first of the above senses of 
inspiration, in the light of the second and third of the 
above senses " every scripture is given by inspiration 
of God." 

There is a fourth sense in which the Bible is the 
inspired word of God ; namely, in that when, through 
a proper understanding of the consent of all its parts, 
the teaching of the Spirit by means of this word of 
revelation is learned, that teaching is the truth, the 
whole truth, and nothing but the truth. It is the 
revealed will of God. 

The prosecution, through Dr. Lampe, make the 



THIRD CHARGE. 95 

statement that " the entire epistle to the Hebrews 
carries out this idea that the statements of Scripture 
are the sayings of God." If by this they mean that 
all the statements contained in the Bible are utter- 
ances that were inspired of God in the first sense 
given above, they state what is obviously not correct. 
Yet in the second, third, and fourth senses given 
above, all the statements of Scripture form the Word 
of God, the " most necessary " revelation of His will 
to man. 

Some who hold that the whole Bible has been writ- 
ten and given to man under special Divine guidance, 
do not call that providential superintendence which 
has secured the infinitely wise and truthful recording 
of all that is contained in the Bible " inspiration " 
(just as they and others do not call by the name of 
" inspiration " the providential oversight by which 
the Word of God has been kept pure through all the 
ages). They call by the name "inspiration" only 
the act of God in enduing men to speak or write that 
which is in and of itself the eternal and unchange- 
able truth of Gocl. But so long as they hold to the 
fact of infallible guidance having been given for the 
second, third, and fourth purposes above named, it 
matters little by what name that guidance is called, 
so long as no violence is done to Scripture teaching. 

Now, the strange confusion, misunderstanding, and 
disagreement between the prosecution and Dr. Briggs 
has been due mainly, so far as this question is con- 
cerned, to a misunderstanding and misuse of the term 
" inspiration." 



96 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

The prosecution seem never to discriminate between 
inspiration in the first sense given above and inspira- 
tion in the second, third, or fourth senses. They 
appear to assume that while there is only one kind of 
inspiration, that inspiration is exercised in only one 
way, and for the doing of only one thing. They rea- 
son as if every person who wrote or spoke any part 
of what is contained in the Bible must have been a 
saint, and that every statement recorded in the Bible 
must be inherently correct, as well as truthfully re- 
corded and chosen with infallible wisdom to form part 
of the Scriptures, which shall be profitable for doc- 
trine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in 
righteousness. 

The prosecution do not attempt any explanation of 
the fact that statements are recorded in the Bible 
which are in themselves the very opposite of the truth 
of God. The following sentence is an example of 
the vague and general way in which they speak of the 
whole subject : " The books were written by men, yet 
the God of truth is in such a deep sense their Author 
that everything written therein is to be received, be- 
lieved, and obeyed, because it is the Word of God." 

Is the devil's statement, " Ye shall not surely die," 
to be received, believed, and obeyed because it is in 
the Bible ? Are we to take every statement we find 
in the Bible as in itself an expression of the mind and 
will of God ? May we take any sentence we find any- 
where recorded in the Bible and regard it as in itself 
absolutely correct simply because it is truthfully re- 
corded in the Word of God ? May we choose a text 



THIRD CHARGE. 97 

indiscriminately and call it one of the true sayings of 
God ? I was taught a different doctrine at Princeton, 
and in a way that impressed it upon my memory. It 
was in connection with the preaching of my " ten- 
minute sermon " in the " Oratory." I chose for my 
text a verse that had long been precious to me (Job 
xxii. 21) : " Acquaint now thyself with Him and be 
at peace ; thereby good shall come unto thee." At the 
close of my effort, Professor C. Wistar Hodge, D. D., 
the presiding critic on that evening, called attention 
to the fact that I had spoken of the words of the text 
as the words of God, and had treated them as such ; 
while, as a matter of fact, they were the words of 
Eliphaz the Temanite, who was not speaking under 
the guidance of Divine inspiration, and had entirely 
misunderstood Job's righteous character, and was con- 
sequently giving him poor counsel and miserable com- 
fort (see Job xlii. 7). " You are all right this time, 
however," said the professor ; " for the lessons you 
have drawn from the text are good, and the text itself, 
as you have interpreted it, is confirmed by other parts 
of Scripture ; but in future look more carefully at the 
context." I began to learn the lesson then, and have 
been learning it more and more ever since. But after 
nearly a quarter of a century of searching the Scrip- 
tures, one finds he has still much to learn in order to 
be thoroughly skilled in " rightly dividing the word 
of truth." He knows that many errors of doctrine 
are faithfully recorded in the Word of God, and they 
are not always labelled " errors." 

For the prosecution to demand that a minister shall 



98 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

say that there are no literary errors recorded in the 
Bible, when it is well known to contain recorded 
errors of an unspeakably graver nature, seems very 
strange. If, as we have seen, all that the Bible con- 
tains was not spoken by inspired men, and if, as we 
have also seen, inspired men did not always speak 
as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, as in the case 
of the old prophet at Bethel, then all that inspiration 
had to do with these uninspired utterances was to 
guide as to whether they should or should not be 
recorded, and if they were to be recorded, to guide to 
the truthful recording of them. When thus recorded 
they became part of the inspired record, though not 
in the first sense above named. They are not to be 
for instruction in the positive sense of having to be 
received, believed, and obeyed, but in such other way 
as the consent of all the parts of Scripture, under the 
guidance of the Holy Spirit, shall teach. 

" But," say the prosecution, " that the Confession 
does not tolerate the idea of the presence of errors in 
the Holy Scripture is still further evident from the 
fact that the entire perfection of the Scripture is given 
as proof that it is the Word of God, while the asser- 
tion is made that the Holy Spirit assures the believer 
of the i infallible truth and divine authority thereof.' 
A book which contains errors cannot have the quality 
of ' entire perfection,' and the Holy Spirit could not 
assure us of its ' infallible truth.' " 

Such reasoning as this would compel any one who 
accepted it to reject the Bible and declare that it 
cannot have the quality of entire perfection. It would 



THIRD CHARGE. 99 

lead some to say that since our present translations 
of the Bible contain errors they are not to be trusted 
as the Word of God. It would lead others to say that 
since the false words of Satan are in the Bible it can- 
not be infallibly true. We may be thankful that the 
above statement by the prosecution is a misstatement. 
The statement with which they follow it is true : " Our 
standards teach the truthfulness of the entire written 
Bible, because it is the 'very Word' of the God of 
truth." But the prosecution seem not to understand 
the true meaning of their own sentence. They have 
fallen foul of another term which they have failed to 
define. They have not discerned the distinction be- 
tween the terms " the very Word of God " and u the 
very words of God." They evidently think that every 
sentence of the Bible is inspired in the first of the 
senses named above, and that the lying words of 
Satan or of wicked men, with other foolish or inac- 
curate statements, by being truthfully recorded in the 
Holy Scriptures, become, not simply parts of the book 
called, and which truly is, " the Word of God," but 
become transformed into the " very words " of God, 
in the sense of having the thought they express in- 
dorsed by Him. 

In the above quotation the prosecution have stum- 
bled at another simple word which they seem never 
to have defined to themselves. It is the word 
" errors." They have failed to perceive the differ- 
ence between " errors," or " an error," and " error " 
in the discussion of this subject. The word " errors " 
as used by Dr. Briggs means wrong statements, inac- 



100 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

curacies ; the singular of the word would apply to one 
such mistake. But the word " error " is used in a 
different sense, namely, that not of inadvertent mis- 
take, but false teaching. Dr. Briggs, in common with 
all orthodox Presbyterians, holds that the Bible con- 
tains no "error" in this sense. Whatever inadvertent 
mistakes as to dates or other circumstantial matters 
may be recorded in it, — yes, and whatever false doc- 
trine uttered by Naamathite, Shuhite, or Temanite, 
or by Satan himself, may be recorded in it, — it never 
teaches error. Dr. Charles Hodge, in his " Systematic 
Theology," again and again insists upon this distinc- 
tion. In vol. i. p. 169, he says : " Do the Scriptures 
teach what from any source can be proved not to be 
true ? The question is not whether the views of the 
sacred writers were incorrect, but whether they taught 
error. For example, it is not the question whether 
they thought that the earth is the centre of our sys- 
tem, but did they teach that it is ?" 

Apply this to the Bible as a whole. The question 
is not what statements the Bible contains, but what 
does it teach ? Whatever may be the recorded views 
of some of those whose false utterances or inaccurate 
statements are made to form part of the Bible narra- 
tive, the Bible itself teaches nothing but the truth. 
Had the prosecution appreciated these distinctions, then 
instead of saying that " the Confession does not toler- 
ate the idea of the presence of errorsm the Holy Scrip- 
tures," they would have said that " the Confession does 
not tolerate the idea of the teaching of error by the 
Holy Scriptures." And instead of saying " A book 



THIED CHARGE. 101 

which contains errors cannot have the quality of c en- 
tire perfection,' and the Holy Spirit could not assure 
us of its ' infallible truth,' " they would have said : "A 
book which teaches error cannot have the quality of 
' entire perfection,' " etc. 

The prosecution also mistake the meaning of the 
word "truthfulness." They evidently think of it 
as being inherent in words and sentences, instead of 
in the utterer of the words and sentences and in the 
doctrines those words and sentences are made to teach. 
A man is not made truthful simply by uttering words 
that are true ; nor does a truthful man become un- 
truthful by quoting the false words of others. It is by 
the use he makes of those words that we judge of his 
veracity. 

The prosecution contend that if the Bible contains 
within its pages any of the false words of men " it 
lacks the one essential of infallibility, absolute truth- 
fulness of all its contents." One cannot but be 
amazed that intelligent men should reason in such a 
way. "Infallibility" is almost the only term the 
prosecution have undertaken to give a definition of. 
But even it they did not define in the technical sense 
in which it is used in connection with the doctrine of 
inspiration, but in its common acceptation. It was 
easier for them to do this. All they had to do was 
to turn up the word in Webster's Dictionary, and then 
write down the sentence : " Webster defines the word 
infallible as ' not fallible ; not capable of erring ; en- 
tirely exempt from liability to mistake ; unerring, in- 
errable.' " But no sooner have they gotten this good, 



102 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

orthodox, lay definition of the word than they misuse 
it by coupling it with the word " errors " which they 
have not found a definition of, and therefore use it in 
the sense of " error " or false teaching, and say : " In 
plain English therefore, a book which is pervaded by 
errors c to an indefinite extent ' cannot be an infallible 
rule." 

But it is unnecessary to go on exposing the fallacies 
of the argument of the prosecution by which they sup- 
port equally fallacious charges. Enough has been said 
to enable the reader to understand that, by failing to 
have before their minds any clear and correct defini- 
tion of such terms as " inspiration," " plenary, or 
full, inspiration," " Word of God," " words of God," 
" errors," " error," " truthfulness," etc., the prose- 
cution were wholly unable to understand the position 
of Dr. Briggs. And it was just as impossible for Dr. 
Briggs to explain his position to them. He displayed 
great skill in the attempt, but failed. When he spoke 
of inspiration in one sense they understood it in a 
different sense. When he addressed himself to the 
task of defending himself in the light of inspiration as 
they appeared to understand the term, he found that 
they made the word in that sense cover more ground 
than his own reason and intelligence would allow him 
to make it cover. He could find no meaning and use 
of the word that would meet all the purposes they 
made it serve. 

So also when Dr. Briggs spoke of " errors," sub- 
stantially in the sense of quotations of erroneous 
statements, as being found in the Bible, they regarded 



THIRD CHARGE. 103 

him as speaking of error, or false teaching, or that 
which in some way impaired the infallibility of the 
Bible as the Word of God. It was in vain that he 
uttered this memorable sentence : " The only errors I 
have found or ever recognized in Holy Scripture have 
been beyond the range of faith and practice, and there- 
fore they do not impair the infallibility of Holy Scrip- 
ture as a rule of faith and practice." 

This one sentence, uttered by a man of Dr. Briggs' 
scholarship and ability as a Biblical critic, is of more 
value than all the vague theories of inerrancy that 
have ever been thought out. 

Had Dr. Briggs said that he had found that the 
Bible teaches error, or that its writers disagree in their 
teaching, one holding one doctrine regarding the origin 
of man and another another, or one proclaiming one 
way of salvation and another another, there would then 
have been cause for alarm. But when, after the most 
scholarly critical study of ancient manuscripts, and of 
the Bible in our own language as well as in the original 
and other tongues, he is able to say that he can neither 
find, nor see that any other person has found, any 
errors in the Bible that are of any vital importance 
whatever, the Church should rejoice, and be glad that 
it has in its ministry a scholar who is fully able to 
cope with the foes of the Bible on their own ground, 
and defend its authority from being interfered with by 
their unjust allegations. 

In the light of this analysis of the orthodox view 
of inspiration, to which Dr. Briggs subscribes, it is 
easy to see how he could hold both that the Bible 



104 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

contains the Word of God and is the Word of God ; 
how he could affirm both that it contains errors, and 
is wholly free from error. Not knowing the sense in 
which these terms are used, the prosecution could no 
more understand them than, without a proper knowl- 
edge of the sense in which the words were used, they 
could understand Paul's list of paradoxes, in which 
he speaks of himself and his fellow-Christians " as 
deceivers, and yet true ; as unknown, and yet well- 
known ; as dying, and behold we live, ... as having 
nothing, and yet possessing all things." 

The great Dr. Robert South has a sermon on 
" The Fatal Imposture and Force of Words," from the 
text Isaiah v. 20: " Woe unto them that call evil good, 
and good evil ; that put darkness for light, and light 
for darkness ; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for 
bitter." He opens the outline of his sermon with the 
words : — 

"Here a woe is denounced against those, not only in 
particular, who judicially pronounce the guilty innocent, 
and the innocent guilty, but in general, who, by abusing 
men's minds with false notions, make evil pass for good, 
and good for evil." 

Had Dr. South lived in our day he might have 
found a striking illustration of his theme in connection 
with the trial of Dr. Briggs — only that the fatality con- 
nected with the imposture and force of words, in this 
case, was not intentional, but manifestly inadvertent. 
But, inadvertent though it was, it may be questioned 
if there has ever been in our day so remarkable an 



THIRD CHARGE. 105 

exhibition of misunderstanding between brethren, 
from the misuse and misunderstanding of words and 
terms, as was witnessed at the Washington Assembly. 
But there is one objection which the prosecution 
urge against the above orthodox view of inspiration 
which demands a few words in closing. They claim 
that " this teaching subjects the Bible to the reason ; " 
that " each man must determine for himself by his 
own reason or conscience how much may be accepted 
as the Word of God." 

The prosecution seem to have a sacred dread of the 
thought of using their reason in matters of religion. 
In all soberness, I believe that this accounts for the 
singularly unreasonable positions they have taken up 
in connection with this whole case. They are too 
sensitive on this point. A little reason is necessary 
in dealing with the contents of the Bible. Even 
ordinary common-sense helps. Not a little reason 
is necessary, but a great deal on the part of some. 
We must " search the Scriptures." The Bible was 
not written in such a way as to encourage indolence, 
but to develop diligence. The doctrine that it is all 
alike nutritious, and therefore you need not trouble 
yourself " dividing " it, but may just read a few verses 
now and then anywhere, is the lazy man's doctrine. 
If he treats God's great book of nature in this way, 
full of the goodness of the Lord though it be, he will 
find himself eating poison instead of wholesome food 
one day. 

In using the Bible one must do more than use 
his reason, including his conscience and whole moral 



106 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

nature. He must listen to what the Church has to 
say through its various ministries and ordinances ; 
and while using the " Word " and the " sacraments," 
he must not forget u prayer." He must ask for God's 
Spirit to be given him. " He shall guide you into all 
the truth." " He shall teach you all things." 

Besides all this, one must give his heart to God. 
The Bible has not been written in such a way that 
men can arrive at certainty regarding its contents 
without making a saving use of them. " The secret 
of the Lord is with them that fear Him, and He will 
show them His covenant." And one must lead a 
consistent Christian life if he would reach certainty 
regarding the Bible and its teachings. If we do His 
w T ill we shall know of the doctrine. " Unto the up- 
right there ariseth light in the darkness." " All the 
paths of the Lord are lovingkindness and truth unto 
such as keep His covenant and His testimonies." 
And one must be pure and gentle and Christlike in 
all things if he would reach the highest degree of 
certainty. " The meek will He guide in judgment, 
the weak will He teach His way." " Blessed are the 
pure in heart, for they shall see God." In harmony 
with all these Scripture statements are the following 
words of R. Rothe : — 

"It is only the pious subject that can speculate theo- 
logically. And why? Because it is he alone who has the 
original datum, in virtue of communion with God, on 
which the dialectic lays hold. So soon as the original 
datum is there, everything else becomes simply a matter 
of logic." 



THIRD CHARGE. 107 

But in no way can the prosecution's objection to 
the above orthodox doctrine of inspiration be more 
directly met than by quoting the fifth section of the 
first chapter of the " Confession of Faith," which both 
confirms the doctrine and shows that heresy lurks in 
the heart of their objection to it. 

" V. We may be moved and induced by the testimony 
of the Church to an high and reverend esteem of the Holy 
Scripture : and the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy 
of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all 
the parts, the scope of the whole (which is to give all 
glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way 
of man's salvation, the many other incomparable excellen- 
cies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments 
whereby it doth abundantly evidence itself to be the Word 
of God; yet notwithstanding, our full persuasion and 
assurance of the infallible truth, and Divine authority 
thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit, bear- 
ing witness by and with the Word in our hearts." 

For further light as to the way of ascertaining the 
mind of the Spirit' as He speaks in the Word, take 
section ix. of the same chapter of the " Westminster 
Confession " : — 

"The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is 
the Scripture itself: and therefore when there is a ques- 
tion about the true and full sense of any scripture (which 
is not manifold, but one) it must be searched and known 
by other places that speak more clearly.'' 



108 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

FOURTH AND FIFTH CHARGES : AUTHORSHIP OF TEE 
PENTATEUCH AND THE BOOK OF ISAIAH. 

THE fourth charge, which accuses Dr. Briggs of 
heresy for teaching that Moses was not the 
author of the Pentateuch, and the fifth, which charges 
him with heresy for teaching that Isaiah was not the 
author of one half of the book that bears his name, may 
be considered together, as they stand in the same 
relation to both Scripture and the Confession of Faith. 
If the Confessional rules, which, it is alleged, have been 
alike broken in both cases, are shown not to have been 
broken in one case, then it follows that they have not 
been broken in the other. The rules which are said 
to have been violated are : (1) " that the Holy Scrip- 
ture evidences itself to be the Word of God by the 
consent of all the parts;" and (2) "The infallible 
rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture 
itself." 

The citing of these two rules by the prosecution 
shows that they feel hampered at the outset by the 
fact that the Bible nowhere says that Moses was the 
author of the Pentateuch, or that Isaiah wrote the 
whole book that bears his name, and that there is no 
such claim made anywhere in the Confession of Faith. 



FOURTH AND FIFTH CHARGES. 109 

They find themselves compelled to try to prove this 
charge of heresy by inference ; namely, the inference 
that teaching that Moses is not the author of the 
Pentateuch, and that Isaiah did not write the whole 
book that bears his name, in some way contravenes 
the two Confessional statements given above. 

It is interesting to notice that in seeking to estab- 
lish this inference, the prosecution inadvertently enter 
the field of u higher criticism " themselves, and by the 
very literary methods which they condemn, and by 
which Dr. Briggs substantiates his views, they seek 
to overthrow these views. Evidently, however, they 
are not at home in this field, and tread somewhat 
cautiously as follows : — 

" The Pentateuch itself points to Moses as its author. 
It speaks of him as a maker of books, in which he wrote 
history and laws by the command of Jehovah. 7 ' " The laws 
of all the codes appear in the Pentateuch as a unit on the 
background of Israel's wilderness life, not mutually con- 
flicting, but mutually supplementary to each other." 

They even quote the opinion of a distinguished 
" higher critic " in support of their contention ; but 
they quote him at the wrong time. They quote him 
in support of the statement that Genesis and the rest 
of the Pentateuch were written by the same author ; 
but, as will presently appear, a scholarly Princeton 
professor has shown that Genesis was not written by 
Moses. Their quotation is as follows : " It is con- 
ceded that Genesis has a common authorship with the 
other four books, So that we must accept the con- 



110 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

elusion that the Pentateuch claims Moses as its 
author. Scholars like Kuenen freely admit this." 

Having in a previous sentence affirmed that " A 
great part of the document is ascribed to Moses," and 
that " Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy 
are credited to him as the medium through whom 
God communicated them to the people, when Israel 
was in the wilderness, and when Aaron and Eieazer 
were high priests," and having made the above 
statement regarding " the laws of all the codes," and 
the alleged concession regarding the authorship of 
Genesis, they proceed, after the manner of the " con- 
jectural critics," to reason as follows : — 

"If this claim he not true, then the Pentateuch is 
neither genuine nor authentic, and it must be untrust- 
worthy. If the Pentateuch's claim of Mosaic authorship 
be false, and the work originated piece by piece during 
centuries after the death of Moses, the document as it has 
come to us is a fraud, and no dependence can be placed 
upon it." 

In other words, although the Bible nowhere claims 
that Moses is the author of the Pentateuch, they 
guess that he was because the Pentateuch itself speaks 
of him as a maker of books, etc. ; they are strength- 
ened in this conjecture by the fact that Moses is said 
to have written parts of the Pentateuch ; they are still 
further encouraged to think that Moses wrote the 
whole from the fact that many, and a " higher critic " 
among the number, believe that Genesis has a com- 
mon authorship with the other four books ; therefore, 



FOURTH AND FIFTH CHARGES. Ill 

if the claim put forth in this conjecture be not true, 
the Pentateuch is " a fraud "/ 

Verily, if this be a fair specimen of the "higher 
criticism," I for one am not in favor of it. Its pre- 
mises are too weak and disjointed, and its conclusions 
too lamely arrived at. It is by means of no such 
halting logic that accurate scholars of any school 
reach their conclusions. 

The prosecution themselves seem to feel that their 
logic is not as conclusive as it should be. They sup- 
plement it by a few additional sentences of inferential 
criticism, followed by another concession quoted from 
the Encyclopaedia Britannica (!) as follows : " It is 
conceded that in the time of Chronicles Moses was 
already taken to be the author of the Pentateuch 
(Encylopaedia Britannica, Pentateuch)." Whether the 
writer of the article quoted from is a " higher critic " 
or a logician of another kind, is not indicated. The 
prosecution are not yet satisfied that they have estab- 
lished their contention. They accordingly resort to tra- 
dition in the hope of strengthening their premises ; 
but it will be observed from the following quotation 
that they themselves distrust this new kind of evi- 
dence, and impliedly confess its weakness by defend- 
ing it before it is attacked. Their language is as 
follows : " The Jewish people for three thousand years 
have given their united testimony in behalf of the 
Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. The Christian 
Church has always united in that testimony. This 
singular unanimity of God's people on this question 
for so many centuries is of such great value that it 



112 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

cannot be sneered out of court as mere traditionalism. 
Such a consensus is not to be cast aside for the 
trivial reason that it does not accord with the subjec- 
tive impressions of the higher critics, which impres- 
sions are those of men as fallible as the rest of us." 

The next sentence is of special interest in the light 
of the prosecution's attempt at " higher criticism " as 
given above : " Conjectural criticism on the Pentateuch 
has not established its claim to our confidence. For 
not all those who use it attain to good results when 
working in fields where the rest of us can follow." 

Certainly the prosecution have not attained to good 
results in their attempt to follow, but then they have 
followed at too great a distance. May they yet be 
found, side by side with Dr. Briggs, expert higher 
critics of the evangelical school. 

The next sentence uttered by the prosecution is an- 
other curious non sequitur. It is a conclusion with- 
out any valid premises as its basis, — a " thus " in the 
sense of " therefore " which has no proper affinity with 
what precedes. The sentence is as follows : " Thus 
Dr. Briggs has misapprehended completely the teach- 
ing of the fathers, reformers, and Westminster divines 
regarding the truthfulness of the Bible." 

Why say " thus " when we have had nothing fur- 
nished us by the prosecution as to the teaching of the 
fathers, reformers, and Westminster divines regard- 
ing the truthfulness of the Bible as depending upon 
the authorship of the Pentateuch and the Book of 
Isaiah ? — and for the simple reason that there is 
nothing to furnish. The fathers, reformers, and 



FOURTH AND FIFTH CHARGES. 113 

Westminster divines taught no such doctrine as the 
prosecution have attributed to them. Who has ever 
taught, until now, that the truthfulness of the Bible 
depends upon its human authorship ? 

Having failed to establish their charge, or any part 
of it, thus far, they come to their last and main re- 
liance for proof, which is substantially contained in 
the first two sentences they utter regarding it, as 
follows : " But Christ and the writers of the New 
Testament give unqualified testimony to the Mosaic 
authorship of the Pentateuch. When speaking of 
'the law,' ' the law of Moses,' 'the book of Moses,' 
and ' Moses' writings,' they used those terms in the 
accepted meaning of that time as referring to the 
entire Pentateuch." 

But it will be observed that the second of these two 
sentences contradicts the first. " Christ and the 
writers of the New Testament " in speaking of " the 
law," " the law of Mos'es," " the book of Moses," and 
" Moses' writings," " used these terms in the accepted 
meaning of that time," and not as giving any " testi- 
mony to the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch." 
And the same thing was true of their references to 
" Isaiah." This review might close here, so far as the 
necessity for showing how utterly the prosecution have 
failed to make good their charge of heresy is con- 
cerned. But this review seeks to point out, not simply 
how strangely fallacious the positions of the prosecu- 
tion are, but how directly opposed they are to those 
held by distinguished Presbyterian scholars, occupy- 
ing, up to the time of their decease, the most important 
8 



114 TRIAL OF DR BRIGGS. 

positions as religious teachers at the very fountain-head 
of orthodoxy in America. 

I have now the pleasure of quoting the teaching of 
another of my late revered Princeton professors, and 
of setting forth the fact that he did not believe that 
Moses was the author of the whole Pentateuch. What- 
ever may have been his views regarding the authorship 
of the other four books of the Pentateuch, or the book 
of Isaiah, he neither held nor taught that the book of 
Genesis was written by Moses. He taught, on the con- 
trary, that it was not. 

In a work which bears upon the titlepage of its first 
volume, " A Comparative History of Religions, by 
James C. Moffat, D.D., Professor in the Theological 
Seminary in Princeton. Part 1. Ancient Scriptures. 
New York. Dodd & Mead, 762 Broadway, 1873," 
twenty-eight pages, namely, from page 73 to page 
101, of vol. i. are devoted to proving that Moses 
could not have been the author of the book of Gene- 
sis. Any reader will find those twenty-eight pages of 
intense interest from any point of view (as the whole 
scholarly work is) ; and by orthodox Presbyterian 
Bible students known to the present writer the argu- 
ment they contain has been deemed conclusive and 
unanswerable. No attempt will be made here to re- 
produce the argument, but a few quotations may be 
taken from the pages to confirm what has been said 
above regarding the fallacy of the positions taken 
by the prosecution as to the authorship of Isaiah 
and the Pentateuch, and the truthfulness of the 
Bible. 



FOURTH AND FIFTH CHARGES. 115 

Speaking of the Pentateuch, Dr. Moffat says (page 
73) : — 

"That the first of those books in its present form has 
not descended to us from the time in which any, even the 
latest of its events occurred, is capable of easy demon- 
stration; and it is just as plain that it has undergone the 
process of modernization, receiving the explanation of old 
names from more recent names, and other additions from 
editorial hands at some date subsequent to the conquest of 
Canaan." 

On page 99 the author says : — 

"Occasionally we find ancient names followed by the 
explanation in the more recent name, as if the editor had 
not felt free to modernize the whole so far as to leave out 
the old and substitute the new, but preferred to retain the 
old, appending the new by way of explanation. Thus, 
'Bela (the same is Zoar); 'Kiriath Arba (the same is 
Hebron),' etc. " 

Speaking of the book of Genesis, on page 74, Dr. 
Moffat says : — 

"It is substantially pre-Mosaic, and bears distinct 
internal marks of belonging to the same primitive, patri- 
archal style of society which gave birth to the earliest 
songs of the Veda and the Avesta." 

Then there follows a statement which all who hold 
the opinions of the prosecution regarding the views of 
Dr. Briggs would do well to ponder, — a series of state- 
ments rather, — as follows : — 

" To the value of Scripture it no way imports who the 
original writer was. The authority of inspiration is of 



116 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

equal weight without the sanction of a human name. Can 
it be determined who penned the Book of Job, or of 
Judges, or of Chronicles, or some of the most beautiful 
and affecting of the Psalms? And are those parts of 
Scripture of inferior weight because of that unsettled 
question ? It is not the human authorship which confers 
the authority of inspiration; but, on the contrary, it is 
inspiration which gives his weight to any of the prophets, 
no matter what his name. The word of God bears its 
own stamp, and stands in no need of a voucher in any 
name of human renown. There is that in it and about it 
whereby it is as truly distinguished from a work of the 
human mind as a natural rose is distinguishable from an 
artificial one, or a natural landscape from one arrayed 
according to the laws of art. As the silent declaration of 
Deity rises from nature, so does it from revelation, self- 
sustained, and sustaining its defenders while borrowing 
nothing from them. "Whether we know or do not know 
the name and genealogy of God's human instrument in 
the case is, in respect to Scriptural authority, a matter of 
very little moment. Where the name of the writer has 
been recorded, and we know about him in other connec- 
tions, it is certainly gratifying to feel that we have a sort 
of personal acquaintance with one so favored of God; and 
yet it is undoubtedly not without design that the names 
of several Scripture writers have been withheld. 

"The book of Genesis came down from antiquity to the 
Hebrew nation with their laws, and through the hands of 
the lawgiver, and was, therefore, very naturally by them 
classed under the same head; but the traditional classifi- 
cation is not entitled to forbid its full weight to the 
obvious fact that the book is anonymous. Yet anonymous 
as it is, no other portion of Scripture bears the marks of 



FOURTH AND FIFTH CHARGES. 117 

Divine inspiration more legibly impressed upon it than 
the book of Genesis. . . . The question of its authorship 
is merely one of literary history; but under that head a 
question of no common interest. . . . 

"The very latest event mentioned in Genesis had 
occurred, at the shortest estimate, more than half a 
century before Moses was born, and the rest of its human 
history covers a period extending to more than two thou- 
sand years of a prior antiquity, — the earlier parts of it 
standing in relation to Moses, chronologically, as the 
times of Homer and Hesiod and Thales stand to ours. 
It is clear that he could not have been the human author 
of such a history by any natural means. 

' ' The book could have come to his hands in only one 
of four ways : either the whole was revealed to him super- 
naturally; or its materials came down to him on the 
stream of tradition ; or they were kept in detached records 
— written monuments of one kind or another — from 
which he composed the work; or finally, the whole is 
an historical series, preserved in the usual historical way, 
and existing in its original historical integrity." 

By a thorough and scholarly examination of the 
whole subject Dr. Moffat reaches the following 
conclusions : — 

"Whoever were the penmen of it, the book of Genesis 
was composed after the manner of all the rest of Scripture, 
by successive additions of book to book " (page 97"). 

"It is. the collection in chronological order of the 
ancient books themselves, without further trace of edi- 
torial work than that of modernizing the diction and 
prefixing the conjunction in some cases, by way of link- 
ing the consecutive books together " (page 92). 



118 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

"The primal epoch of revelation to which it pertains 
was separated from its successor by a long period of 
degeneracy; and a similar degeneracy intervened between 
the close of the revelations belonging to the Mosaic epoch 
and those which opened the Christian. In both these 
intervening periods the written Word kept the spirit of 
the Church alive " (page 97). 

"In what we call the book of Genesis, then, we have 
the Bible of the patriarchal Church, — the Bible of the 
Church before Moses, containing literary productions from 
the earliest ages of our race, and the only extant historical 
authorities of the first two thousand years " (page 99). 

In the course of his discussion of this most inter- 
esting question Dr. Moffat meets and easily disposes of 
the statement upon which the prosecution finally 
relied for proof of their charge that Dr. Briggs is 
guilty of heresy in teaching that Moses is not the 
author of the Pentateuch, nor Isaiah of half the book 
that bears his name. The reliance of the prosecution 
was upon the fact that Christ and the writers of the 
New Testament speak of " the law of Moses," and 
quote from it in connection with the name of Moses, 
and from the book that bears Isaiah's name as if it 
might all have been written by him. The principle 
in both these cases is the same, and has been fully 
explained by Dr. Moffat as follows : — 

" In the gospel according to Luke, xxiv. 27, we find it 
said of the Saviour that, ' beginning from Moses and from 
all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the Scrip- 
tures the things concerning Himself,' and hence might 
infer a final settlement of this question. Because, if 



FOURTH AND FIFTH CHARGES. 119 

there are things concerning the Messiah in Genesis, as 
we are told there are, it must be comprehended under the 
name of Moses, from whom, together with all the prophets, 
He began His exposition. But in order to that conclusion 
we must show that the words ; Moses,' 'the prophets ' and 
'the Scriptures,' are designations of authorship, and not 
mere classification of the sacred books. Upon attempt- 
ing, however, to make this point good, from parallel pas- 
sages, and passages of direct reference or quotation, we find 
everything going to determine the opposite. In the forty- 
fourth verse of the same chapter of Luke, ' the law of Moses, 
the prophets, and the Psalms ' is obviously a classification 
of the books of Old Testament Scripture. So in Matt. 
v. 17 ; vii. 12, and xxii.' 40, and Luke xvi. 16 the law 
and the prophets are used as general terms comprehending 
all Scripture. In these last mentioned instances it is 
clear that the words ' law and the prophets ' correspond 
respectively to ' Moses and the prophets ' in the first. The 
name of Moses, as the writer of the law, is used in a sense 
synonymous with ' law,' according to a custom equally prev- 
alent in our own language. And then either or both of 
them are used as terms whereby to designate a class of 
sacred books in which the law was the principal part. 
That group of books contained also history, poetry, and 
much else besides law, but the law was its great feature 
and furnished a convenient designation for the whole, 
which every Hebrew rightly understood when so used. 
It was not, however, always confined to the Pentateuch. 
Jesus Himself sometimes called the whole body of Old 
Testament Scripture the law (John x. 34 ; xv. 25). 
Sometimes the two heads, the law and the prophets, were 
used as comprehensive of the whole, and sometimes three 
classes were made, i the law, ' or ' Moses,' or ' the law of 



120 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

Moses,' being the name given to the first, 'the prophets' 
designating the second, and 'the Psalms ' the third. It is 
clear that these names, so far from determining author- 
ship, do just the very opposite, by grouping together under 
the same head books of acknowledgedly different authors, 
and of dates separate by hundreds of years. Thus, as Job, 
Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon were classed with 
the Psalms, although certainly not Psalms, and Kings 
with the prophets though really historical, so Genesis was 
classed with the law of Moses, although not belonging to 
the law. 

" Genesis being thus arranged under the general head 
of the law by the Jews, the Saviour, by adopting, confirmed 
the classification ; but did not thereby affirm anything 
else than that the classification was a proper one; just as 
much, and no more, as he affirmed of the other heads by 
adopting them " (pp. 81-83). 

The above argument by Dr. Moffat is precisely the 
line of argument pursued by Dr. Briggs, only that he 
applied it to Isaiah as well as to the Pentateuch. 

At page 170 of his first volume of " Systematic 
Theology " Dr. Charles Hodge says, " The language 
of the Bible is the language of common life, and the 
language of common life is founded upon apparent 
and not upon scientific truth." 

Dr. Briggs showed that Christ and the New Testa- 
ment writers, using the language of common life 
spoke of the Pentateuch as " the law of Moses" or 
" Moses," and the book called the book of Isaiah as 
"Isaiah," just as we in common language call the 
book of Ruth "Ruth," or the book of Job "Job." 



FOURTH AND FIFTH CHARGES. 121 

He also called attention to the fact that in the fourth 
chapter of " Hebrews " the inspired Word seems to 
speak of the book of Psalms under the name of 
" David " although it is well known that many of the 
Psalms were not written by David. 

There is no doubt that many of the Jews, whose 
language Jesus used, understood it in some cases as 
meaning something more than Jesus understood it to 
mean. There were disputes among themselves over 
many literary and technical questions. But Jesus 
did not enter the arena of literary dispute with them, 
and correct all their minor errors. He had a greater 
work to do, and must leave many errors until the 
time of the dispensation of the Spirit, who, when He 
should come, would guide into all the truth. But 
now that we live in the dispensation of the Spirit, and 
He, by guiding His servants in their study of the 
Word of God, would correct every error, there are not 
a few who prefer to cling to the traditions of the 
fathers and reject the Spirit's teaching. 

Our Confession teaches, chapter i., section x., 
that " the Supreme Judge, by which all controversies 
are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, 
opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and 
private spirits are to be examined, and in whose 
sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the 
Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture." But when 
a Christian scholar, who believes this doctrine, draws 
forth from the treasury of the Word things new and 
old for the correction of error and the building up of 
men in the most holy faith, there are some who up- 



122 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

braid him in such language as the following : " Dr. 
Briggs says, ' Jesus was not bound to correct all the 
errors of His contemporaries.' Well, if that is true, 
then it is a great pity that Dr. Briggs did not follow 
so good an example, so as not to disturb the peace of 
a great church." Had Dr. Lampe remembered the 
words, " I came not to send peace, but a sword," or 
had he observed that his unhappy remark might be 
seen to have a more pointed application to the prose- 
cution than to Dr. Briggs, he would probably not have 
allowed himself to utter it. 

But what has become of the two quotations from 
the Confession of Faith which were the specifications 
by which the prosecution were to prove their charge ? 
They have been captured by Dr. Briggs and turned 
directly against the prosecution. 

"It is not sufficient," said Dr. Briggs, "for the prose- 
cution to claim that a doctrine is an essential doctrine of 
the Westminster standards. They may claim anything 
and everything. It is necessar}^ for them to prove their 
claim. The court have doubtless noticed that the prose- 
cution have made no attempt in their argument to present 
such proof. They have made no use of these passages of 
our Confession whatever. On this account I ask you to rule 
charges four and five out of court as entirely destitute of 
proof. But I shall find it convenient to use these passages 
of the Confession myself, and turn them against the 
prosecutors. I admit that two doctrines of our standards 
are i that the Holy Scripture evidences itself to be the 
Word of God by the consent of all its parts,' and ' The 
infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is Scripture 

itself.'" 



FOURTH AND FIFTH CHARGES. 123 

Dr. Briggs then took these two Confessional state- 
ments that had been relied upon by the prosecution 
to prove their charges, and showed that it was by 
making Scripture interpret itself, and by ascertaining 
" the consent of all its parts," that it had been found 
that Moses was not the author of the Pentateuch, 
nor Isaiah the author of half the book that bears his 
name. The tables were thus completely turned upon 
the prosecution. To use a classic phrase that was 
used in the court, they were " hoisted with their 
own petard." But the court did not so decide. Dr. 
Briggs then closed his argument on these two charges 
as follows : — 

' ' Let me sum up my arguments on the charges four 
and five. 

" 1. There is no lawful bridge by which these specifica- 
tions, ' that Moses is not the author of the Pentateuch, and 
that Isaiah is not the author of half of the book that bears 
his name,' can be brought under the charges. Therefore 
there is no relevancy in the specifications, — they cannot 
be accounted as valid. 

"2. The Westminster Confession of Faith nowhere 
states that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, or that Isaiah 
wrote the whole of the book that bears his name. There- 
fore there can be no lawful case against me in the 
Presbyterian Church. 

"3. The testimony of Holy Scripture in the passages 
adduced does not show that Moses wrote the Pentateuch 
and that Isaiah wrote the book that bears his name. 
Therefore my statements are not in conflict with Holy 
Scripture, and there is no valid case against me on the 
ground of Holy Scripture. 



124 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

"4. Holy Scripture makes it evident that Moses did 
not write the Pentateuch, and that Isaiah did not write 
half of the book that bears his name. Therefore my 
statements are true, and the prosecution are in conflict 
with Holy Scripture." 

These two charges, which are thus seen to have 
absolutely no support from either the Scriptures or 
the Confession of Faith, were regarded by the prose- 
cution as the gravest of all the charges they had 
framed. They seemed to be looked upon as the very 
key of their position. Here are the words with which 
Dr. Lampe, on behalf of the prosecution, closed his 
presentation of these charges : — 

"This teaching is far more dangerous than affirming 
the Scripture to be in error in matters of minor impor- 
tance; it tends to a total destruction of faith in the 
Bible. It has done that already for many. It is entirely 
at variance with the Confessional doctrine of the Holy 
Scripture." 

None of all the charges stirred individual com- 
missioners as did these two. The only case, so far 
as the present writer can remember, in which any 
member of the court needed to be called to order dur- 
ing the trial was in connection with these charges. 
This was in the case of a lay commissioner who 
took an active part in all the proceedings, and whose 
opinions and utterances seemed to have weight with 
many in the court. In expressing his views on 
these charges he was deeply stirred, and with earnest 



FOURTH AND FIFTH CHARGES. 125 

gesture and elevated voice began to relate an imagi- 
nary colloquy between Dr. Briggs and God, in which 
he represented " God Almighty " as declaring to 
Dr. Briggs that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, and 
Dr. Briggs as replying that Moses did not. But at 
this point he was called to order in the most quiet 
and considerate way by a venerable father in the 
Assembly, — the Rev. Dr. Storrs. 

The respect that was entertained for the opinions 
of the commissioner referred to may be judged from 
the fact that at the opening of the Assembly he had 
been made a member of the judicial committee, and 
at the close of the trial he was made a member of the 
committee that was appointed to prepare the sentence 
to be passed upon Dr. Briggs. 

It is possible that Dr. Briggs may not be correct 
in all his conclusions regarding the authorship of 
parts of the Pentateuch and parts of the book of 
Isaiah. He may have made mistakes, such as all 
students are liable at times to make, or such as any 
minister may sometimes make in his interpretation 
of the text from which he preaches ; but that he has 
fallen into any vital error, or that he has cast any 
slight upon any part of the inspired Word, either in 
the course of his study or in the conclusions he has 
reached, is the reverse of what has been proved by 
all the records of the case. 

Instead of aiming at weakening either Divine 
authority or man's loyalty thereto, all his teaching 
claims for its aim the promotion of a higher Chris- 



126 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

tian life through a clearer comprehension of the full 
meaning of the inspired Word of God ; or, to use 
his own language, through learning to see " the mag- 
nificent unity of the whole Bible, to capture all its 
sacred treasures, and to enjoy all its heavenly 
glories." 



SIXTH CHAKGE. 127 



CHAPTER IX. 

SIXTH CHARGE : PROGRESSIVE SANCTIFICATION AFTER 
DEATH. 

WE come now to the last of the six charges that 
were sustained by the General Assembly. It 
accuses Dr. Briggs of teaching the doctrine of pro- 
gressive sanctification after death, and claims that 
this is heresy. There is nothing new about this 
doctrine except, perhaps, the name. With every- 
thing else that is essentially connected with it, every 
student of historical theology is familiar. It is a 
doctrine which has been held by many of the most 
saintly and orthodox divines for centuries. In fact, 
if we leave the letter of the doctrine out of view and 
take account only of its spirit, it is the doctrine held 
by all orthodox Christians. They do not believe 
that the soul either dies or sleeps ; nor do they 
believe the patristic doctrine that between death and 
the resurrection " the soul is in a dreamy, semi-con- 
scious state, neither happy nor miserable, awaiting 
the resurrection of the body." They do not believe 
that the soul enters " a state of suffering," " a purga- 
tory," there to be cleansed from sin before it can 
enter heaven ; nor, on the other hand, do Presby- 
terians believe that the souls of believers attain to 



128 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

the highest blessedness in the state between death 
and the resurrection. They believe that at death 
believers pass into the immediate presence of the 
Lord Jesus, and that they are made perfect in holi- 
ness in the sense of being wholly freed from sin, but 
that some higher degree of blessedness awaits them 
after the resurrection of the body, and the final 
judgment. To use the language of the Westminster 
standards (Larger Catechism, Question 86), they be- 
lieve that — 

"The communion in glory with Christ, which the 
members of the invisible Church enjoy immediately after 
death, is in that their souls are then made perfect in 
holiness, and are received into the highest heavens, 
where they behold the face of God in light and glory, 
waiting for the full redemption of their bodies, which 
even in death continue united to Christ, and rest in 
their graves as in their beds till at the last day they be 
again united to their souls." 

The Presbyterian Church holds that after the 
resurrection and at the day of judgment believers 
shall enter upon a still more blessed state than this, 
as is stated in their standards (Larger Catechism, 
Question 90). 

'* At the day of judgment, the righteous, being caught 
up to Christ in the clouds, shall be set on His right hand, 
and there, openly acknowledged and acquitted, shall join 
with Him in the judging of reprobate angels and men, 
and shall be received into heaven, where they shall be 
fully and forever freed from all sin and misery, filled 
with inconceivable joys, made perfectly holy and happy 



SIXTH CHAEGE. 129 

both in body and soul, in the company of innumerable 
saints and holy angels, but especially in the immediate 
vision and fruition of God the Father, of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, and of the Holy Spirit to all eternity. And this 
is the perfect and full communion which the members of 
the invisible Church shall enjoy with Christ in glory, at 
the resurrection and day of judgment." 

To all these orthodox doctrines Dr. Briggs sub- 
scribes. Whatever else he believes is not of such a 
nature as to prevent him from holding all these 
doctrines. Nor does it conflict with any of these 
doctrines. What he believes in addition to all that 
has just been formally stated is simply of an ex- 
planatory nature. He explains what the words " the 
souls of believers are at their death made perfect in 
holiness " should be taken to mean. He believes that 
the clauses of our standards, as quoted above, which 
speak of the communion in glory with Christ, which 
the members of the invisible Church enjoy immedi- 
ately after death are parallel clauses, — clauses which 
make affirmation, " not of successive chronological 
events, but of parallel events : (1) ' made perfect 
in holiness,' (2) ' received into the highest heavens/ 
(3) i behold the face of God in light and glory,' (4) 
4 waiting for the full redemption of their bodies,' — 
all alike referring to the communion in glory with 
Christ which continues through this entire state 
from death to the resurrection." 

He sees that being made perfect in holiness, ac- 
cording to this view, would not be one instantaneous 
act, but would go on through the whole period be- 



130 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

tween death and the resurrection. In thus being a 
continuous process, he sees that it would resemble the 
process of sanctification as it is taught in the Word 
of God and set forth in the standards of the Church. 
He has, therefore, called it sanctification. lie is 
confirmed in this view by observing that the stand- 
ards teach that the communion in glory which the 
members of the invisible Church have with Christ 
pertains to three stages or states of existence, 
namely : " this life," " at death," or " immediately 
after death," and " at the resurrection and final 
judgment." He further observes that this commun- 
ion is not, in other cases, limited to one instant of 
time, — that u in this life " means during this life 
from the moment of regeneration onward ; that " at 
the resurrection and day of judgment" must mean 
beginning at the resurrection and day of judgment ; 
and, therefore, that " at death," or " immediately after 
death," must mean beginning at, or immediately after, 
death. As elsewhere explained in his argument, Dr. 
Briggs understands this to mean that at the moment 
of death there will be " a transformation ; " which he 
likens to " the springing forth of the blossom in the 
springtime after a long winter's secret preparation," 
"the springing of a new life." He adds this dec- 
laration ; " I firmly believe that then [in the moment 
of death] there will be a transformation greater than 
any that is possible in this life." He says some may 
call this sanctification, — meaning perfect sanctifi- 
cation ; they may call it being " made perfect in 
holiness ; " but he regards this as a very meagre and 



SIXTH CHARGE. 131 

inadequate conception of the sanctification taught in 
the Holy Scriptures and the Westminster Confession. 
He quotes the language of the Confession to show that 
it is not merely cleansing from sin and rising to a 
higher grade of Christian life and experience, " it is 
being more and more strengthened in all Christian 
graces, to the practice of true holiness," and this 
requires duration ; it is " sanctification throughout 
the whole man ; " and the proof-text cited by the 
Confession in support of this doctrine is (1 Thess. 
v. 23) : " And T pray God your whole spirit and soul 
and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of 
our Lord Jesus Christ," — thus showing that before 
sanctification can be perfect the resurrection body 
must have been received, and the second advent of 
Christ must have taken place. But it is unnecessary 
to review the whole argument by which Dr. Briggs 
supports his belief in the doctrine of progressive 
sanctification. All that is necessary is to show the 
position he holds, preparatory to showing that this 
position is not only not contrary to the teaching either 
of the Bible or the Confession, but is regarded by 
many saintly and orthodox divines as the proper 
interpretation of the Scriptures and the standards 
on this question ; and it is also to be regarded as 
substantially the orthodox doctrine, judging by the 
opinions and teaching of the man whose volumes on 
Systematic Theology are commonly regarded, in 
America at least, as the best exposition of Presby- 
terian doctrine anywhere to be found. 

Dr. Charles Hodge, in the third volume of his " Sys- 



132 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

tematic Theology " (page 724), opens his discussion of 
the doctrine of the intermediate state as follows : 

" As all Christians believe in the resurrection of the 
body and a future judgment, they all believe in an inter- 
mediate state. That is, they believe that there is a state 
of existence which intervenes between death and the resur- 
rection; and that the condition of the departed during that 
interval is, in some respects, different from that which it 
is to be subsequent to that event. It is not, therefore, as 
to the fact of an intermediate state, but as to its nature, 
that diversity of opinion exists among Christians. 

"The common Protestant doctrine on this subject is 
that ' the souls of believers are, at their death, made per- 
fect in holiness, and do inimediatety pass into glory; and 
their bodies, being still united to Christ, do rest in their 
graves till the resurrection.' According to this view the 
intermediate state, so far as believers are concerned, is one 
of perfect freedom from sin and suffering, and of great 
exaltation and blessedness. This is perfectly consistent 
with the belief that after the second coining of Christ, and 
the resurrection of the dead, the state of the soul will be 
still more exalted and blessed. " 

This is by no means all that there is to be quoted 
from Dr. Hodge as representing his views on the ques- 
tion now under discussion. But before quoting further 
from his writings, I will relate an incident which 
occurred at Princeton somewhat more than twenty 
years ago. Two theological students, in discussing 
this very question, came upon a difficulty neither of 
them could settle to the satisfaction of the other. 
Their difficulty was, How are the souls of believers 



SIXTH CHARGE. 133 

made perfect in holiness at death ? Is it by a mys- 
terious operation of the Holy Spirit, like the act of re- 
generation, or is it by means of the Word in some form 
in accordance with Our Lord's intercessory prayer, 
" Sanctify them through Thy truth ; Thy word is 
truth " ? The two students agreed to refer the matter 
to the venerable Dr. Hodge ; so at the close of the 
next lecture in his class-room they stepped forward to 
his desk. No sooner was the question propounded 
than the venerable teacher, with his gold spectacles 
resting above his brow, benevolence beaming on his 
strong yet tender countenance, and the simplicity of 
a child in his speech, answered, " Oh, bathe a soul in 
the light of heaven and it will become perfect in holi- 
ness in a very short time ! " These were his exact 
words. They have often been related since, but I 
believe were never before put on record. Other words 
were spoken, but what they were is not remembered. 
But this much is certain : the tenor of them, together 
with the above utterance, led the present writer to 
conclude that the sanctification of believers when they 
pass into the presence of Christ is by means of The 
Word ; that it is through beholding Jesus and enjoy- 
ing His presence that we become " like Him." Is not 
this what Avas meant by being " bathed in the light of 
heaven ?" "The Lamb is the Light thereof." What 
the now sainted theologian meant by " in a very short 
time " I do not profess to know. But I do know that 
I have heard him guarding us against reasoning about 
eternity as we would reason about time, — measuring 
out its hours as we measure the hours of one of earth's 



134 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

days, forgetting that eternal duration is a subject we 
do not as yet understand, and that "one day is with 
the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as 
one day." May it not be that all our reasoning about 
either the instantaneousness or progrcssiveness of 
being made perfect in holiness after death may only 
betray to celestial intelligences our ignorance of things 
unseen and eternal, at which we may at present 
" look," indeed, but concerning which we have been 
furnished with but few data out of which to manufac- 
ture logical syllogisms ? The Westminster divines 
were no doubt wisely guided in so framing their state- 
ments of doctrine upon this question, which pertains 
rather to the heart and soul than to the head, that 
they may be understood variously. One child of God 
may take the statements of the Larger Catechism 
regarding the Communion which belie vers have with 
Christ at death to imply an instantaneous act of sancti- 
fication ; another may take them to imply a progressive 
change " from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of 
the Lord." It is an interesting fact in this connec- 
tion that the first and second clauses in the answer of 
the question on this subject in the Shorter Catechism 
may be regarded as interchangeable. Instead of say- 
ing " The souls of believers are at their death made 
perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory, 
and their bodies, being still united to Christ, do rest 
in their graves till the resurrection," the answer 
might have read : " The souls of believers at their 
death do immediately pass into glory and are made 
perfect in holiness, and their bodies, being still united 



SIXTH CHARGE. 135 

to Christ, do rest in their graves till the resurrection." 
If it be true that it is by being bathed in the light or 
glory of heaven that perfection in holiness comes, 
then the latter would be the more natural order. But, 
as we have already seen, this is not a subject upon 
which mortals may dogmatize. It is a question upon 
which orthodox leaders in all Protestant churches 
have always allowed great liberty of individual opin- 
ion, so long as no violence is done to positive state- 
ments in the Word of God — if there are any such 
statements bearing directly upon this doctrine. We 
know that for the believer to depart is to be with 
Christ ; to be absent from the body is to be present 
with the Lord ; that the soul of the penitent thief went 
direct from the cross to Paradise. But, as Dr. Briggs 
has pointed out, only one proof-text is cited in support 
of the Confessional statement that the souls of believers 
are at their death made perfect in holiness, and even 
that one text is not a direct statement of the doctrine. 
In the opinion of man} r — and among them such divines 
and scholars as Calvin and De Wette — " the spirits of 
just men made perfect " spoken of in that text do not 
refer to the spirits of all believers immediately after 
death ; so that the passage, in their opinion, teaches 
nothing regarding the doctrine now in question. 

The boldness of the prosecution, in charging Dr. 
Briggs with heresy for holding the doctrine of pro- 
gressive sanctification after death is striking when 
viewed in the light of the fact that John Calvin him- 
self, after whom the Presbyterian system of doctrine 
takes its name, held that believers, in the interme- 



136 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

diate state between death and the resurrection, are 
" in the way of advancement." The attention of 
the Assembly was called to this fact by Dr. Briggs, 
who quoted Calvin's views as follows : — 

" As, however, the Spirit is accustomed to speak in this 
manner in reference to the last coming of Christ, it were 
better to extend the advancement of the grace of Christ to 
the resurrection of the flesh. For, although those who 
have been freed from the mortal body do no longer con- 
tend with the lusts of the flesh, and are, as the expression 
is, beyond the reach of a single dart, } T et there will be no 
absurdity in speaking of them as in the way of advance- 
ment, inasmuch as they have not yet reached the point at 
which they aspire; they do not yet enjoy the felicity and 
glory which they have hoped for; and, in fine, the day has 
not yet shone which is to discover the treasures which lie 
hid in hope. And, in truth, when hope is treated of our 
eyes must be directed forward to a blessed resurrection as 
the grand object in view." (Calvin on Phil. i. 6.) 

It is not necessary to point out the various ways in 
which the prosecution have misunderstood language 
used in connection with this doctrine, as they misun- 
derstood language used in connection with the fore- 
going doctrines ; nor need I point out fallacies in 
their reasoning, and false inferences drawn by them 
from Dr. Briggs' statement of his views. I shall 
close the review of this sixth charge by showing 
that, in the opinion of so conspicuously orthodox a 
divine as the late Dr. Charles Hodge, the man who 
holds the views Dr. Briggs holds on this subject 
should not have his orthodoxy called in question. 



SIXTH CHARGE. 137 

By turning to the third volume of his " Systematic 
Theology," pp. 733-743, it will be found that in the 
opinion of Dr. Hodge even those who hold the patris- 
tic doctrine of the intermediate state, as it is com- 
monly set forth in modern times, are in substantial 
agreement with the strictly orthodox view. 

At one point in his argument Dr. Briggs said : " Let 
me read a single question that has been sent up to 
me : ' Do you mean by middle state a condition of 
being, between earth and heaven, or a condition of 
heavenly life between the death of the believer and 
the final judgment ?' " Dr. Briggs' prompt reply to 
this question was : " I mean the latter." 
< Dr. Briggs, in common with Dr. Hodge and other 
orthodox theologians, holds that the " middle state " 
is not a different place from heaven and hell, but 
simply a state of existence in some respects differ- 
ent from that which will be more fully experienced 
after the resurrection and final judgment. In this he 
and other strictly orthodox theologians differ from 
those who hold the patristic view commonly known 
as the doctrine of " the intermediate state," as dis- 
tinguished from the doctrine of an intermediate state, 
as held by the majority of Christians. 

The patristic doctrine of "the intermediate state " is 
modelled after the old Jewish belief in Sheol. Speak- 
ing of the belief of the early Christians regarding 
this doctrine, Dr. Hodge says (Systematic Theology, 
pp. 738-739) : — 

" As many of the Jews therefore assumed that in Sheol 
there were two departments, Paradise and Gehenna, the 



138 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

one the abode of the righteous, the other of the wicked, 
so the Christians, in many cases, made the same distinc- 
tion with regard to the intermediate state; the souls of 
believers went to Paradise, the souls of the wicked into 
hell. And they often so exalted the blessedness of the 
former as to make it a mere dispute about words whether 
they went to heaven or into an intermediate state. The 
real controversy," adds Dr. Hodge, "so far as any exists, 
is not as to whether there is a state intermediate between 
death and the resurrection in which believers are less 
glorious and exalted than they are to be after the second 
advent of Christ, but what is the nature of that state. " 

Dr. Hodge then indicates what he means by the dif- 
ference as to the nature of the state, by asking the 
questions : " Are believers after death with Christ ? 
Do their souls immediately pass into glory ? Or, are 
they in a dreamy, semi-conscious state, neither happy 
nor miserable, awaiting the resurrection of the body ? " 
Dr. Briggs, in common with Dr. Hodge and other 
strictly orthodox theologians, answers the first and 
second of these questions in the affirmative, and the 
third in the negative. 

But the opinion of Dr. Hodge as to the orthodoxy 
of Dr. Briggs' position on this subject may be learned 
still more definitely from his statements regarding 
the modern form of the doctrine of " the interme- 
diate state " on pp. 741-743 of his "Systematic The- 
ology," vol. iii., a few extracts from which may now 
be given as follows : — 

" The common views on this subject are perhaps fairly 
represented in the elaborate work of the Honorable Archi- 



SIXTH CHARGE. 139 

bald Campbell, on ' The Doctrine of a Middle State between 
Death and the Kesurreetion ' (London, 1721, p. 44). He 
thus sums up the points which he considers himself to 
have proved to be the doctrine of the Bible, of the Fath- 
ers, and of the Church of England: — 

" 'First, that the souls of the dead do remain in an 
intermediate or middle state between death and the 
resurrection. ' 

" 'That the proper place appointed for the abode of the 
righteous during the interim between death and the resur- 
rection, called Paradise or Abram's bosom, is not the high- 
est heavens where alone God is present, fully to be enjoyed, 
but it is, however, a very happy place, one of the lower apart- 
ments or mansions of heaven, a place of purification and 
improvement, of rest and refreshment, and of divine con- 
templation, — a place whence our Blessed Lord's humanity 
is sometimes to be seen, though clouded or veiled if com- 
pared with the glory He is to appear with and be seen in 
at and after His second coming. Into which middle state 
and blessed place, as they are carried by the holy angels, 
whose happy fellowship they there enjoy, so afterward 
at the resurrection, after judgment, they are led into 
the beatific vision by the Captain of our salvation, Jesus 
Christ Himself, where they shall see Him fully as He 
is, and there they shall enjoy God for ever and ever, or 
sempiternally.' 

"The souls of the wicked at death do not go into hell, 
but into a middle state, ' which state is dark, dismal, and 
uncomfortable, without light, rest, or any manner of re- 
freshment, without any company but that of devils and 
such impure souls as themselves to converse with, and 
where these miserable souls are in dismal apprehensions 
of the deserved wrath of God.' 



140 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

" 'Secondly, That there is no immediate judgment after 
death, no trial on which sentence is pronounced, of nei- 
ther the righteous nor the wicked, until Christ's second 
coming.' . . . 

" 'Thirdly, That the righteous in their happy middle 
state do improve in holiness, and make advances in per- 
fection, and yet they are not, for all that, carried out of 
that middle state into glory, or into the beatific vision, 
until after their resurrection.' " 

(Campbell also held that prayers for the blessed dead 
"are acceptable to God as being fruits of our ardent char- 
ity, and are useful to them and to us.") 

" 'Lastly. That this doctrine of an intermediate state 
between death and the resurrection, as I have proved it, 
does effectually destroy the popish purgatory, invocation 
of the saints departed, popish penances, commutations of 
those penances, their indulgences, and treasures of merits 
purchased by supererogation.' " 

Dr. Hodge also quotes the opinion of Jeremy Taylor, 

as follows : — 

" 'Paradise is distinguished from the heaven of the 
blessed, being itself a receptacle of holy souls, made illus- 
trious with visitation of angels, and happy by being a 
repository for such spirits, who at the day of judgment 
shall go forth into eternal glory.' ' ; 

"Again he says: 'I have now made it as evident as 
questions of this nature will bear, that in the state of 
separation the spirits of good men shall be blessed and 
happy souls; they have an antepast or taste of their re- 
ward; but their great reward itself, their crown of right- 
eousness, shall not be yet; that shall not be until the day 
of judgment.' " 



SIXTH CHARGE. 141 

After making the above quotations from devout 
scholars who held, not the doctrine of an intermedi- 
ate state held by Dr. Hodge and Dr. Briggs, but the 
doctrine of " the intermediate state " as a separate 
place in which there was held to be advancement in 
holiness, Dr. Hodge gives us his opinion of the little 
importance to be attached to the difference between 
even such views as these and those known as strictly 
orthodox views, in the following words : — 

"It appears, therefore, that there is little difference 
between the advocates of an intermediate state and those 
who are regarded as rejecting that doctrine. Both admit, 
(1) that the souls of believers do at death pass into a 
state of blessedness; (2) that they remain in that state 
until the resurrection; (3) that at the second coming of 
Christ, when the souls of the righteous are to be clothed 
with their glorified bodies, they will be greatly exalted 
and raised to a higher state of being." 

If this were Dr. Hodge's opinion regarding the mod- 
ern form of the patristic doctrine, what would he 
have said had he been told that a scholarly Presbyte- 
rian professor was condemned as a heretic for teach- 
ing that neither the holiness nor the happiness of a 
believer is in the highest sense perfect immediately 
after death, but that there is growth in both until 
the resurrection of the body and the day of judg- 
ment. Judging from his views as recorded above, he 
would promptly have said : " It is a great mistake ; 
he is in substantial agreement with all orthodox 
Christians." 



112 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

What the belief of the prosecution is as to the con- 
dition of the souls of believers in the intermediate 
state between death and the resurrection is not at all 
clear from their arguments. Whether they believe 
that having become perfect in holiness at the moment 
of death, the}' are from that time onward perfect in 
happiness also, and as completely blessed as they Mill 
be after the resurrection, and that they thus live in 
an eternally conservative and unprogressive condition 
from the moment of death on through all eternity ; 
.or whether they believe that the souls of believers, 
having, in the moment of death, attained the goal of 
absolute perfection, live on in a dreamy, semi-con- 
scious state of existence, waiting for the redemption 
of the body, we are not told. The latter would seem 
to be most in accord with their views. One member 
of the prosecution, Dr. Birch, is on record as saying: 
" All dead Christians are asleep. When we are asleep 
we show the rest which consists in the action of mind 
and body." 1 I cannot believe that Dr. Birch really 
holds the heretical doctrine of " the sleep of the soul," 
but it is quite possible that, if the views of the prose- 
cution were accurately ascertained and formulated, 
they would be found to be a modified form of the old 
patristic doctrine of a dreamy, semi-conscious state, 
— a doctrine based upon the old Jewish doctrine. 
And why not ? If the opinions of the Jews for over 
three thousand years be quoted by the prosecution in 
support of their view of the authorship of the Penta- 
teuch, why should they not be allowed to quote the 
1 "Stenographer's Report," pageGSl. 



SIXTH CHARGE. 143 

opinion of the Jews for over three thousand years in 
support of their theory of the state of the soul between 
death and the resurrection ? It is well that the whole 
of orthodox Christendom has always allowed great 
liberty of individual opinion upon this difficult ques- 
tion in eschatology. 



144 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 



CHAPTER X. 

"THE REJECTED CHARGES": MESSIANIC PROPHECY 
AND SECOND PROBATION. 

THE foregoing six charges were framed by the 
Prosecuting Committee prior to the meeting 
of the Portland Assembly in May, 1892. Having 
received permission at that assembly to amend the 
charges within certain limits, the committee took the 
liberty of adding two new charges, interjecting one 
between charges three and four, and the other between 
charges five and six, and changing the numbering of 
the charges accordingly, so that four and five of the 
original series became five and six of the amended 
series, and number six of the original charges became 
number eight of the amended list. 

The former of these two new charges (number four 
of the amended series) alleges that Dr. Briggs teaches 
a doctrine "which is contrary to the essential doctrine 
of the Holy Scripture and of the standards of the 
Church, that God is true, omniscient, and unchange- 
able," which the prosecution explain as follows : " In 
the fourth of the amended charges, Dr. Briggs is 
charged with teaching that many of the Old Testament 
predictions have been reversed by history, and that the 
great body of Messianic prediction cannot be fulfilled." 



"THE REJECTED CHARGES." 145 

The latter of the two new charges (number seven of 
the amended series) charges Dr. Briggs with teaching 
that "the processes of redemption extend to the world 
to come in the case of many who die in sin." 

These two charges were rejected by the Presbytery 
of New York on two grounds: (1) because it was 
contrary both to the instructions of the Portland 
Assembly and the law of the Presbyterian Church, 
and not in the interests of justice to allow the com- 
mittee to amend the charges in such a way as to 
change their general nature ; and (2) Because botli 
charges accused Dr. Briggs of holding doctrines which 
he utterly disavowed, and repudiated the idea of ever 
having taught. He had done this before the Presby- 
tery of New York, in presence of the prosecuting 
committee, prior to the meeting of the Portland 
Assembly, as he stated to the Washington Assembly, 
as follows: 

"In my response, November 4, 1891, I said, * Specifica- 
tion seven alleges that Dr. Briggs teaches that predictive 
prophecy has been reversed by history, and that much of 
it has not been and never can be fulfilled.' This specifi- 
cation makes invalid inferences and against Christian 
courtesy, and an imputation upon my veracity which this 
Presbytery should not tolerate. 

"Charge seven charges me 'with teaching that the pro- 
cesses of redemption extend to the world to come in the 
case of many who die in sin.' The prosecution impute 
this doctrine tome notwithstanding the disclaimer of such 
teaching which has been submitted to the Presbytery on 
two different occasions : — 

10 



146 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

"1. Dr. George Alexander laid before the Presbytery 
on October 5, 1891, without consultation with me, my 
answers to the following questions of the directors 
of the Union Theological Seminar}': 'Do you hold to 
what is commonly known as the doctrine of a future pro- 
bation? Do you believe in purgatory?' Answer — 'No.' 
'Do you believe that the issues of this life are final, 
and that a man who dies impenitent will have no further 
opportunity of salvation?' Answer — 'Yes.' 

"2. In my response of November 4, 1891, I said: 'If 
I had been charged with teaching second probation, or any 
probation whatever after death, I might have pointed to 
several of my writings in which this doctrine is distinctly 
disclaimed. If the doctrine of purgatory had been imputed, 
or regeneration after death, or transition after death from 
the state of the condemned to the state of the justified, 
any and all of those could be disproved by my writings.' 
I ask the Presbytery, in view of these disclaimers, if it is 
just, if it is honorable, if it is in accordance with Christian 
courtesy and gentlemanly propriety for the prosecution to 
make such charges against me." 

When the question came up for discussion in the 
Washington Assembly, as to whether the Presbytery 
of New York was right in rejecting these two charges, 
the prosecution presented much, if not substantially 
all, of what they had to urge in support of the charges. 

As the charges themselves were not tried either 
before the Presbytery or General Assembly, it would 
perhaps be improper for this review to enter fully 
upon the consideration of their merits. All that 
need be done is to show, from the arguments of the 



"THE REJECTED CHARGES." 147 

prosecution in support of their appeal against the 
rejection of the charges, wherein they have fallen 
into error and wholly misunderstood the position of 
Dr. Briggs. 

In the first place, they have misunderstood and 
misapplied his language in a way that seems unac- 
countable. 

For example, in proof of their charge that Dr. 
Briggs teaches " that the processes of redemption 
extend to the world to come in the case of many who 
die in sin," the prosecution say, "' The processes of 
redemption,' he states, ' ever keep the race in mind. 
The Bible tells us of a race origin, a race ideal, and a 
race redemption.' " And they mean this to be taken 
as indicating that Dr. Briggs teaches Universalism or 
some such heresy. 

Now the reader will observe that the prosecution 
seek to condemn Dr. Briggs here for stating a simple 
fact. The Bible in speaking of redemption does always 
keep the race in mind. It tells us that God sent not 
his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that 
the world through him might be saved ; that Christ 
came not to judge the world but to save the world ; 
that He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours 
only, but also for the sins of the whole world ; that as 
by one trespass the judgment came upon all men to 
condemnation, even so through one act of righteous- 
ness the free gift came unto all men unto justification 
of life. 

Must Dr. Briggs and the Bible be charged with 
teaching either the doctrine of Universalism or the 



148 TRIAL OF DR BRIGGS. 

doctrine of a second probation because of such state- 
ments ? 

Dr. Briggs was showing that the teaching of the 
Bible warrants us in believing (as the greatest of 
orthodox divines have taught) that the number of the 
redeemed will ultimately be so vast, as compared with 
the number of the lost, that salvation will be seen to 
have extended to the whole race. The redeemed will 
not be a limited number selected from among the 
mass, but on the contrary, the redeemed will be the 
mass, — " a great multitude which no man could num- 
ber, out of every nation and out of all tribes and peoples 
and tongues," — and the lost a limited number. 1 

But what is our surprise to find that the prosecution 
see in Dr. Briggs' language a denial of the doctrine 
of election ! They say : " According to Dr. Briggs, 
redemption is not limited by election. He says, ' The 
Bible does not teach universal salvation, but it does 
teach the salvation of the world, of the race of man, 
and that cannot be accomplished by the selection of a 
limited number of individuals from the mass.' " 

1 " That the benefits of redemption shall far outweigh the evils 
of the fall, is here clearly asserted. This we can in a measure 
comprehend, because the number of the saved shall doubtless 
greatly exceed the number of the lost. Since the half of man- 
kind die in infancy, and, according to the Protestant doctrine, 
are heirs of salvation ; and since in the future state of the Church 
the knowledge of the Lord is to cover the earth, we have reason 
to believe that the lost shall bear to the saved no greater propor- 
tion than the inmates of a prison do to the mass of the com- 
munity." (Dr. Charles Hodge's Commentary on Romans, chap. v. 
verse 21.) 



'•THE REJECTED CHARGES." 149 

Why did the prosecution not go on and quote Dr. 
Briggs' next sentence as part of their argument ? 
It is as follows : " The holy arm that worketh salva- 
tion does not contract its hand in grasping only a few ; 
it stretches its loving fingers so as to comprehend as 
many as possible, — a definite number, but multitudes 
that no one can number." 

To place a Christian minister's ecclesiastical life 
in jeopardy by such a misreading and misuse of plain 
language is a grave mistake, which the prosecution 
themselves should be the first to hasten to correct. 

The prosecution make a similar misapplication of 
the following language quoted from page 53 of the 
inaugural : " Another fault of Protestant theology is 
in its limitation of the processes of redemption to this 
world, and its neglect of those vast periods of time 
which have elapsed for most men in the middle state 
between death and the resurrection." They have in- 
terpreted this to mean that Dr. Briggs holds that men 
can be regenerated in the middle state, — a doctrine he 
distinctly disavows. Had they remembered that he 
was speaking, not of one act in the plan of redemption, 
but of the processes or progress of ^eflemption in the 
case of those already regenerated, they might have 
avoided this mistake. 

Another mistake into which the prosecution have 
fallen is that of disregarding the well-known principle 
of interpretation that when any statement made by 
a writer is obscure and there is a question about 
" the true and full sense " of it, its meaning is to be 
" searched and known by other places " in the writings 



150 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

of that author, " which speak more clearly." The 
prosecution quote from page 56 of the inaugural a sen- 
tence which is somewhat obscure to them, and which 
they interpret as teaching that regeneration can take 
place after death. Had they remembered that in other 
places Dr. Briggs distinctly disavows this doctrine 
they would have decided otherwise. The sentence 
referred to is the following : — 

"The salvation of the world can only mean the world 
as a whole, compared with which the unredeemed will be 
so few and insignificant, and evidently beyond the reach 
of redemption by their own act of rejecting it aud harden- 
ing themselves against it, and by descending into such 
depths of demoniacal depravity in the middle state that 
they will vanish from the sight of the redeemed as alto- 
gether and unredeemably evil, and never more disturb the 
harmonies of the saints." 

When read in the light of what Dr. Briggs teaches 
in other places, the key to the proper interpretation of 
the sentence is the word "evidently," which is equiva- 
lent to " will be seen to be ; " and the meaning is not 
that they will place themselves beyond the reach of re- 
demption by " descending into such depths of demon- 
iacal depravity in the middle state, etc.," but that their 
" descending into such depths of demoniacal de- 
pravity," together with' the fact of their having by 
their own act rejected salvation and hardened them- 
selves against it, will be seen by the saints to be such 
an evidence or proof of their being altogether and 
unredeemably evil that they will finally " vanish from 



"THE REJECTED CHARGES." 151 

the sight of the redeemed," and never more disturb 
their harmonies. 

The prosecution, ignoring all that Dr. Briggs has 
plainly taught in other places, and as if bound to put, 
not the more favorable, but the less favorable con- 
struction upon his words, remark that " if Dr. Briggs 
does not teach in this passage that some men who 
die impenitent might have been redeemed in the 
middle state but for their 4 descending to such depths 
of demoniacal depravity in the middle state,' then 
certainly when he tried to clothe his concept with 
language, he puts its clothes on upside down." It 
does not seem to have occurred to the prosecution 
that perhaps it was not the clothes of the sentence 
that were upside down, but that they were themselves 
mentally upside down while looking at the clothes. 

The prosecution should have remembered that as 
far back as 1824 the Assembly announced the prin- 
ciple that " candor requires that a court should favor 
the accused by putting on his words the more favor- 
able rather than the less favorable construction." 
(Moore's Digest, p. 224.) 

The next mistake into which the prosecution have 
fallen is that of failing to observe the distinction 
between hypothetical statements and positive state- 
ments. When Dr. Briggs, writing as an apologist and 
inquirer after the truth upon a subject, raises and 
discusses questions that seem to have a bearing upon 
that subject, or discusses texts of Scripture that seem 
to throw light upon it, or for the sake of a thorough 
investigation of the subject assumes the possible cor- 



152 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

rectness of doctrines which are commonly regarded 
as unsound, the prosecution charge him with holding 
and teaching every idea he has made use of in dis- 
cussion in this way. Then they wonder what he 
means when he declares that he does not teach those 
ideas. 

This applies to several of the false positions they 
charge him with holding under these two rejected 
charges as well as elsewhere. For example, when 
Dr. Briggs is referring to the scripture which declares 
that the unpardonable sin shall not be forgiven, nei- 
ther in this life nor in the life to come, the prosecu- 
tion quote his words as follows : — 

"This raises the question whether any man is irre- 
trievably lost ere he commits the unpardonable sin, and 
whether those who do not commit it in this world ere they 
die are, by the mere crisis of death, brought into an un- 
pardonable state ; and whether, when Jesus said that this 
sin against the Holy Spirit was unpardonable here and 
also hereafter, he did not imply that all other sins might 
be pardoned hereafter as well as here." 

It will be observed that Dr. Briggs has made no 
positive statement here, no declaration of his views, 
but has simply said that a certain passage of Scrip- 
ture raises certain questions. But the prosecution 
class this with the other statements already given, 
which they have been shown to have misunderstood 
and misapplied, and say of it and of them, " These 
declarations are contrary to direct statements of 
Scripture," — the first and most direct of which is 



"THE REJECTED CHARGES." 153 

Prov. xi. 7 : " When a wicked man dieth, his expecta- 
tion shall perish, and the hope of unjust men per- 
isheth." 

The prosecution might have learned from one of 
Dr. Briggs' apologetic statements, quoted by them- 
selves, that their charge against him of teaching that 
regeneration can take place in the middle state, is 
unfounded. They quote from page 220 of his work 
entitled " Whither," the following words : " The 
question which we have to determine as Calvinists is 
whether the divine act of regeneration may take place 
in the middle state." This statement, which is 
unfortunately severed from its context, proves that 
Dr. Briggs does not believe that it has yet been shown 
that the divine act of regeneration may take place in 
the middle state. He stated before the Assembly 
that he would be glad to teach this doctrine if it 
could be found in the Bible, but he could not find it 
there, and therefore could not teach it. This was a 
much stronger testimony against the doctrine of a 
second probation than could possibly be borne by any 
of those who have no care whatever regarding this 
matter. Is it an offence to cherish a willingness to 
teach any doctrine that can be proved to be a doctrine 
of the Bible ? Would not the members of the Pros- 
ecuting Committee themselves be glad to preach the 
doctrine of a second probation if it were taught in the 
Word of God ? Any man would who is not lacking 
in that charity which " hopeth all .things." 

What has been said of the failure on the part 
of the prosecution to distinguish between positive 



154 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

statements and hypothetical or apologetic statements 
applies to their charge against Dr. Briggs of teaching 
the non-fulfilment of Old Testament predictions, and 
especially Messianic prophecy. In order to refute 
their arguments, all that was necessary was for Dr. 
Briggs to read his teaching on the subject from his 
well-known work on " Messianic Prophecy." Before 
reading from this work he said : — 

"1 have been teaching Messianic prophecy for twenty 
years to a thousand Christian ministers, who are now at 
work in all parts of the world. I wrote this work on 
'Messianic Prophecy' after many years of teaching and 
careful revision of my lectures. This book has been 
translated into the Japanese language, and is now in use 
in several theological colleges in Japan. They see no 
error in it, and it has received the commendation of no 
less a man than William E. Gladstone, and the hearty 
approval of no less evangelical a man than Dr. Pranz 
Delitsch of Leipsic." 

Dr. Briggs then read at length from this work, and 
so completely did his quotations refute the charge his 
opponents had made against him regarding the non- 
fulfilment of Messianic prophecy that somewhat of 
a sensation was caused in the court. When the book 
was produced, a member of the court asked the ques- 
tion, " When was that book written ? " It proved to 
have been written in 1886. After the reading of the 
quotations from it, Dr. Briggs was interrupted by an- 
other member of the court, as follows : — 

"We have listened to what Dr. Briggs has said on 
that subject, and I should like to ask him a question. 



"THE REJECTED CHARGES." 155 

That book was written in 1886, and I should like to 
ask if that is the opinion of Dr. Briggs at this time ? 
Does he subscribe to the same opinion now ?" 

" Certainly, I do," said Dr. Briggs. " That book I 
use as a text-book in the Union Theological Semi- 
nary, where it has been used continuously ever since 
it was written. Every senior class goes over it every 
year. I have not changed a particle." 

The member of the Judicial Committee referred to 
in a former chapter as feeling so deeply in regard to 
the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch was the next 
questioner. He said : " Before Dr. Briggs sits down, 
in justice to him and my own mind, — I did not inter- 
rupt him in the course of his argument, — I would 
like to ask him if, in his book on Messianic Proph- 
ecy, which I have never read, from pages 4 to 45 
he makes the statement that ' the essential ideals 
of predictive prophecy are fulfilled.' Is that the 
position ? That is all I desire to ask." Here the 
moderator indicated that there was no time just then 
for the asking and answering of questions, as the 
hour of adjournment had come. So Dr. Briggs re- 
plied to the above question by simply saying, " I 
read over the appeal. The brother can read it after 
the meeting." 

The questioner was not satisfied with this answer, 
and said : " What I want to ask through you, Mr. 
Moderator, is, whether Dr. Briggs gives a definition 
of what is essential and what is ideal as to what is to 
be fulfilled in predictive prophecy. That is my first 
question." 



156 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

. " Yes, I did give a definition," said Dr. Briggs, 
" and I will read it over again if you wish." 

In reply the questioner said : " I would like him to 
read and state what is the distinction between essen- 
tial and non-essential ? " 

Dr. Briggs replied, " I shall have to read the whole 
chapter. Mr. McDougall can have the book if he 
wishes it." 

The discussion was finally closed with this state- 
ment by Dr. Briggs in answer to another questioner : 
" I have shown in my ' Messianic Prophecy,' that the 
great body of Messianic prediction had been, or will 
be, in the mediatorial reign or second advent of our 
Lord, fulfilled in history." 

This was seen to be a direct refutation of the 
charge in question, which was that he taught " that 
the great body of Messianic prediction cannot be 
fulfilled." 

As these two " rejected charges " had not been 
retained as part of the indictment on which Dr. 
Briggs was tried by the Presbytery of New York, 
it was not competent for the General Assembly, the 
Supreme Court of the church, to put him on trial 
upon them. All that the Assembly could do was 
either to approve the Presbytery's action in rejecting 
them or to say that the Presbytery had erred in reject- 
ing the charges, and remit them to the Presbytery 
for trial. Had the majority of the Assembly seen fit 
to take the latter of these two courses Dr. Briggs might 
have appeared again before his Presbytery and had the 
satisfaction of fully defending his views on these two 



"THE REJECTED CHARGES." 157 

questions, and of knowing how they were regarded 
by his brethren who stood nearest to him ecclesiasti- 
cally. The majority of the Assembly did not see fit, 
however, to take this course, nor did they sustain the 
Presbytery of Xew York in rejecting the charges. 
On the contrary they decided that the presbytery 
had erred in rejecting them, but left the charges 
untried. The moral effect of this action of the 
majority will no doubt be to convey the impression 
to the Church and the world that Dr. Briggs was 
adjudged guilty on these two charges as well as on 
all the other six. 

Is there any precedent for a superior or supreme 
court deciding that charges which had been rejected 
by a lower court should not have been rejected, — in 
other words, that they should have been tried, — and 
then leaving these charges hanging over the accused 
untried ? Did not the Assembly, by condemning the 
action of the presbytery in not trying the charges, 
virtually at the same time condemn its own action 
in entertaining those charges and yet not ordering 
them to be tried ? And does not this anomalous 
action of the Assembly give weight to the unfortunate 
impression made upon the minds of many, that the 
object of the prosecution in the case of Dr. Briggs was 
not to ascertain the exact nature of the guilt or 
innocence of the accused, but to secure his conviction ; 
and that when charges enough had been sustained to 
warrant his suspension from the ministry, the court 
manifested indifference as to the two additional 
charges preferred against him, although these charges 



158 TRIAL OF DR BRIGGS. 

were of a very grave nature, both as affecting the 
accused himself and the purity of doctrine in the 
Church at large ? Is not this one of the errors into 
which the court inadvertently fell in its haste to pacify 
the majority of the Church by condemning one whom 
they believed to be guilty of heresy ? 



DECISIONS AND PKOTESTS. 159 



CHAPTER XL 

DECISIONS AND PROTESTS. 

THAT the reader may have before him a brief 
view of the case as a whole, there will be 
given in this chapter a few essential facts connected 
with its initiation in the Presbytery of New York, 
and its transference from the Presbytery to the Gen- 
eral Assembly, together with the full text of the 
decisions of the Presbytery and General Assembly 
thereupon, and also the protests which followed the 
action of the Washington Assembly. 

It was on the occasion of his inauguration as 
Professor of Biblical Theology in Union Theological 
Seminary, N. Y., on the 20th of January, 1891 (his 
chair formerly having been that of Professor of Hebrew 
and Cognate Languages), that Dr. Briggs delivered the 
inaugural address upon which all the charges preferred 
against him were based. 

On the 13th day of April, a. d. 1891, the Presby- 
tery of New York appointed a committee to consider 
the inaugural address of the Rev. Charles A. Briggs, 
D. D., in its relation to the Confession of Faith, and 
on May 11, a. d. 1891, the committee presented to 
presbytery a report, which was accepted, and its 
recommendation, " that the presbytery enter at once 



160 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

upon the judicial investigation of the case," was 
adopted by the presbytery, and thereupon it was — 

"Resolved, That a committee be appointed to arrange 
and prepare the necessary proceedings appropriate in the 
case of Dr. Briggs." 

The Rev. G. W. F. Birch, D. D., Rev. Joseph J. 
Lampe, D. D., Rev. Robert F. Sample, D. D., and Rul- 
ing Elders John J. Stevenson and John J. McCook 
were appointed such committee in conformity with 
the provisions of section 11 of the Book of Discipline. 

At the meeting of presbytery, held on the 5th day 
of October, a. d. 1891, the Prosecuting Committee pre- 
sented charges and specifications in the case, which 
were read in the presence of the judicatory, and were 
then served by the moderator upon the Rev. Charles 
A. Briggs, D. D., together with a citation, citing him 
to appear and plead to the said charges and specifica- 
tions at a meeting of the pi^esbytery, to be held on 
November 4, a. d. 1891. 

On November 4, A. d. 1891, the presbytery, after 
fully hearing Dr. Briggs' " Response to the Charges 
and specifications," upon the motion of the Rev. 
Henry Yan Dyke, D. D., made and entered on its 
records its decision and final judgment dismissing 
the case in the following words, to wit : — 

" Resolved, That the Presbytery of New York, having 
listened to the paper of the Rev. Charles A. Briggs, 
D. D., in the case of the Presbyterian Church in the 
United States of America against him as to the sufficiency 
of the charges and specifications in form and legal effect, 



DECISIONS AND PROTESTS. 161 

and without approving of the positions stated in his 
inaugural address, at the same time desiring earnestly 
the peace and quiet of the Church, and in view of the 
declarations made by Dr. Briggs touching his loyalty to 
the Holy Scriptures and the Westminster Standards, and 
of his disclaimers of interpretations put on some of his 
words, deems it best to dismiss the case, and hereby does 
so dismiss it." 

From this action of the Presbytery of New York, 
in dismissing the case, the Prosecuting Committee 
took an appeal in the name and on behalf of the 
Presbyterian Church to the General Assembly of the 
Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. 

This appeal came before the General Assembly at 
Portland, Oregon, in May, 1892, and after the hear- 
ing of the case the Assembly decided as follows : — 

"The General Assembly having, on the 28th day of 
May; 1892, duly sustained all the specifications of error 
alleged and set forth in the appeal and specifications in 
this case, — 

"It is now, May 30, 1892, ordered that the judgment 
of the Presbytery of New York, entered November 4, 
1891, dismissing the case of the Presbyterian Church in 
the United States of America against Rev. Charles A. 
Briggs, D. D., be, and the same is hereby reversed, and 
the case is remanded to the Presbytery of New York for 
a new trial, with directions to the said presbytery to pro- 
ceed to pass upon and determine the sufficiency of the 
charges and specifications in form and legal effect, and to 
permit the Prosecuting Committee to amend the specifica- 
tions or charges, not changing the general nature of the 
11 



1G2 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

same, if, in the furtherance of justice, it be necessary to 
amend, so that the case may be brought to issue and tried 
on the merits thereof as speedily as may be practicable." 

The action of the Presbytery of New York in com- 
pliance with this decision of the Portland Assembly 
is set forth in the following report : — 

On the ninth day of Januaiy, 1893, a committee con^ 
sisting of the Rev. George Alexander, D. D., the Rev, 
Henry Van Dyke, D. D., and Elder Robert Jaffray, ap- 
pointed to bring in a minute to express the action of the 
said judicatory, made its report, which was adopted by 
the judicatory, and the said presbytery, sitting in a 
judicial capacity, made and entered its decision and 
final judgment in this case, in the following words, to 
wit : — 

"The case of the Presbyterian Church in the United 
States of America against the Rev. Charles A. Briggs, 
D. D., having been dismissed by the Presbytery of Xew 
York on November 4, 1891, was remanded by the general 
assembly of 1892 to the same presbytery, with instructions 
that 'it be brought to issue and tried on the merits thereof 
as speedily as possible.' " 

"In obedience to this mandate, the Presbytery of New 
York has tried the case. It has listened to the evidence 
and argument of the committee of prosecution, acting in 
fidelity to the duty committed to them. It has heard the 
defence and evidence of the Rev. Charles A. Briggs, pre- 
sented in accordance with the rights secured to every 
minister of the church. 

"The presbytery has kept in mind these established 
principles of onr polity : that ' no man can rightly be con- 
victed of heresy by inference or implication ; ' that ' in the 



DECISIONS AND PROTESTS. 163 

interpretation of ambiguous expressions candor requires 
that a court should favor the accused by putting upon 
his words the more favorable rather than the less favor- 
able construction ; ' and that ' there are truths and forms 
with respect to which men of good character may differ.' 

"Giving due consideration to the defendant's explana- 
tion of the language used in his inaugural address, accept- 
ing his frank and full disclaimer of the interpretation 
which has been put upon some of its phrases and illustra- 
tions, crediting his affirmations of loyalty to the standards 
of the church and to the Holy Scriptures as the only infal- 
lible rule of faith and practice, the presbytery does not 
find that he has transgressed the limits of liberty allowed 
under our constitution to scholarship and opinion. 

"Therefore, without expressing approval of the critical 
or theological views embodied in the inaugural address or 
the manner in which they have been expressed and illus- 
trated, the presbytery pronounces the Rev. Charles A. 
Briggs, D. D., fully acquitted of the offences alleged 
against him, the several charges and specifications accepted 
for probation having been ' not sustained \ by the follow- 
ing vote. [See next page.] 

"Accordingly, the presbytery, making full recognition 
of the ability, sincerity, and patience with which the 
committee of prosecution has performed the onerous duty 
assigned it, does now, to the extent of its constitutional 
power, relieve said committee from further responsibility 
in connection with this case. In so doing the presbytery 
is not undertaking to decide how far that committee is 
subject to the authority of the body appointing it, but 
intends by this action to express an earnest conviction 
that the grave issues involved in this case will be more 
wisely and justly determined by calm investigation and 



164 



TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 





Sustained. 


Not Sustained 


Minis- 
ters. 


Elders 


Total 


Minis- 
ters. 


Elders 


Total 


C 1. Specification . 
T j 2. Specification . 

[Charge |« ; ; 


41 
42 
42 
42 


17 
17 
17 
17 


58 
59 
59 
59 


55 
54 
54 
54 


15 
15 

15 
15 


70 
69 
69 
69 


f 1. Specification . 
j| J 2. Specification . 

[ Charge j £ ; ; 


39 
39 
39 
39 


16 
16 
16 
16 


55 
55 
55 
55 


56 

56 
56 
56 


16 
16 
16 
16 


72 
72 

72 

72 


f Specification . . 
IIL i Charge )b 


44 
44 
42 
44 


17 
17 
17 

17 


61 
61 
59 
61 


52 
52 
54 
52 


15 
15 
15 
15 


67 
67 
69 
67 


( Specification . . 
• | Charge j £ ; ; 


39 
39 
39 


15 
15 
15 


54 
54 
54 


55 
55 
55 


17 
17 
17 


72 
72 
72 


( Specification . . 
V ' I Charge { « ; ; 


35 
35 
35 


14 
14 
14 


49 

49 
49 


57 
57 
57 


16 
16 

16 


73 
73 
73 


•y-j i Specification . . 
1 Charge 


41 

41 


16 
16 


57 
57 


55 
55 


14 
14 


69 
69 



fraternal discussion than by judicial arraignment and 
process. 

"In view of the present disquietude in the Presbyterian 
Church and of the obligation resting upon all Christians 
to walk in charity and to have tender concern for the con- 
sciences of their brethren, the presbytery earnestly coun- 
sels its members to avoid on the one hand hast} T or over- 
confident statement of private opinion on points concern- 
ing which profound and reverent students of God's Word 
are not yet agreed, and, on the other hand, suspicions and 



DECISIONS AND PKOTESTS. 165 

charges of false teaching which are not clearly capable of 
proof. 

" Moreover, the presbytery advises and exhorts all sub- 
ject to its authority to regard the many and great things 
in which we agree rather than the few and minor things 
in which we differ ; and, turning from the paths of contro- 
versy, to devote their energies to the great and urgent 
work of the Church, which is the proclamation of the 
gospel and the edifying of the body of Christ. " 

It was from this verdict of acquittal by the Pres- 
bytery of New York that the Prosecuting Committee 
appealed to the Washington Assembly, with the result 
set forth in the pages of this review. 

After the final vote had been taken in the Assem- 
bly, which resulted in the appeal against the decision 
of acquittal by the Presbytery of New York being 1 
sustained by a vote of 383 to 116, a committee of 
fifteen was appointed, with the Rev. Dr. Hoyt, of 
Philadelphia, chairman, " to bring in an explanatory 
minute" and report what "action should be taken 
w r ith reference to what should be done with the 
inferior judicatory." 

Before the report of this committee was read, the 
Eev. Geo. D. Baker, D.D., was asked by Dr. Hoyt 
to make a statement on behalf of a sub-committee 
which had been sent to interview Dr. Briggs, " and give 
him an opportunity to say whatever he might be pleased 
to say in view of the distressing circumstances." 

" Our interview," said Dr. Baker, " was frank, kind, 
and cordial to the last degree ; but Dr. Briggs in- 
sisted strenuously, positively, irrevocably, upon every- 



166 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

thing that he had said in the defence which he made 
when brought to the bar of this court. At my request 
he gave into my hands this statement in his own 
handwriting, which I will read : — 

" In accordance with your request, I hereby state that 
your committee called upon me to ask me if I had any- 
thing to say to them respecting the disposition of the 
case. I thereupon said that I adhered to all the positions 
taken before the General Assembl}', and had nothing fur- 
ther to say; save that the appellee reserves all rights, and 
that the General Assembly should take the exclusive 
responsibility for any further action." 

Dr. Hoyt read the following, which was afterwards 
adopted as the judgment of the Assembly in the 
case : — 

" General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the 
United States of America, in session at Washington, Dis- 
trict of Columbia, June 1, 1893. 

" Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, 
appellant, vs. Rev. Charles A. Briggs, D. D., appellee. 

"On appeal from the final judgment of the Presbytery 
of New York. 

"This appeal being regularly issued and coming on 
to be heard on the judgment, the notice of appeal, the 
appeal, and the specifications of error alleged, and the 
record in the case from the beginning, the reading thereof 
having been omitted by consent, and the parties hereto 
having been heard before the judicatory in argument, and 
the opportunity having been given to the members of the 
judicatory appealed from to be heard, and they having 
been heard, and opportunity having been given to the 



DECISIONS AND PROTESTS. 167 

members of this judicatory to be heard, and they having 
been heard, as provided by the Book of Discipline, and 
the General Assembly, as a judicatory, sitting in said case 
on appeal, having sustained the following specifications of 
errors, to wit : all of said specifications of errors set forth 
in said five grounds of appeal, save and except the first and 
fifth specification under the fourth ground of appeal — 

"On consideration whereof this judicatory finds said 
appeal should be and is hereby sustained, and that said 
Presbytery of ]STew York, the judicatory appealed from, 
erred in striking out said amended charges 4 and 7, and 
erred in not sustaining on the law and the evidence said 
amended charges 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, and 8. 

"On consideration whereof, this judicatory finds that 
said final judgment of the Presb} T tery of Xew York is 
erroneous, and should be and is hereby reversed. 

"And this General Assembly, sitting as a judicatory 
in said cause, coming now to enter judgment on said 
amended charges 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, and 8, finds that the said 
Charles A. Briggs has uttered, taught, and propagated 
views, doctrines, and teachings as set forth in said charges 
contrary to the essential doctrine of Holy Scripture and 
the standards of the said Presbyterian Church in the 
United States of America, and in violation of the ordina- 
tion vow of said appellee, which said erroneous teachings, 
views, and doctrines strike at the vitals of religion, and 
have been industriously spread; wherefore this General 
Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United 
States of America, sitting as a judicatory in this cause on 
appeal, does hereby suspend Charles A, Briggs. the said 
appellee, from the office of a minister in the Presbyterian 
Church in the United States of America until such time 
as he shall give satisfactory evidence of repentance to the 



168 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the 
United States of America of the violation by him of the 
said ordination vow, as herein and heretofore found : and 
it is ordered that the stated clerk of this General Assem- 
bly transmit a certified copy of this judgment to the Pres- 
bytery of New York, to he made a part of the record in 
this case." 

" Mr. Moderator, in addition to this report of judg- 
ment, there were also formulated by us in obedience 
to your commands doctrinal statements bearing upon 
the issues which have been pending here, and with 
your permission I will ask that Rev. Dr. Harsha, the 
chairman of the sub-committee, read that paper." 

Rev. Dr. Harsha. — The report, Mr. Moderator, of 
this sub-committee is a very brief one. We did not 
deem it advisable to go into large details on the doc- 
trinal points raised in this appeal. 

" Your committee, to whom was intrusted the duty of 
formulating a deliverance of this Assembly on the doctrinal 
points involved in the appeal of the committee of prosecu- 
tion from the decision of the Presbytery of New York in 
the case of Charles A. Briggs, D. D., reports as follows: 

" 1. We find that the doctrine of the errancy of Scrip- 
ture, as it came from them to whom and through whom God 
originally communicated His revelation, is in conflict with 
the statements of the Holy Scripture itself, which asserts 
that all scripture, or every scripture, is given by the 
inspiration of God (2 Timothy iii. 16); that the prophecy 
came not of old by the will of man, but that holy men of 
God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost (2 Peter 
i. 21) ; and also with the statements of the standards of 



DECISIONS AND PROTESTS. 169 

the church which assert, that the Holy Scriptures of the 
Old and New Testaments are the Word of God (Larger 
Catechism, question 3), of infallible Truth and Divine 
Authority (Confession, chapter i. section v.). 

"2. We find in this case involved the question of the 
sufficiency of the human Reason and of the Church, as 
authorized guides in the matter of salvation. Your 
committee recommends that this General Assembly de- 
clare that the Reason and the Church are not to be 
regarded as fountains of Divine Authority; that they are 
unreliable and variable, and whilst they may be, and no 
doubt are, channels or media through which the Holy 
Spirit may reach and influence for good the human soul, 
they are not to be relied upon as sufficient in themselves, 
and aside from Holy Scripture, to lead the soul to a saving 
knowledge of God. To teach otherwise is most dangerous, 
and contrary to the Word of God and our standards, and our 
ministers and churches are solemnly warned against them. 

" 3. We find involved in this case a speculation in 
regard to the process of the soul's sanctification after death 
which in the judgment of this Assembly is a dangerous 
hypothesis, in direct conflict with the plain teachings of 
the Divine Word and the utterances of the standards of 
our church. Those standards distinctly declare that the 
souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holi- 
ness and do immediately pass into glory, whilst their 
bodies, being still united to Christ, do rest in their graves 
till the resurrection. (Shorter Catechism, question 37; 
Cor. v. 3; Phil. i. 23; and John xvii. 24.) " 

Against the foregoing judgment of the Assembly, 
and a declaration by the Assembly that the original 
manuscripts of the Bible were without error, protests. 



170 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

which were largely signed, were submitted by Rev. 
Dr. Sprague, of Auburn, and Rev. Dr. Herrick John- 
son, of Chicago, respectively. 

The following is the protest presented by Dr. 
Sprague, of Auburn, in regard to the sentence 
against Dr. Briggs : — 

"We, the undersigned, ministers and elders in the Pres- 
byterian Church in the United States of America, declare 
our hearty belief in, and love for, the Holy Scriptures of 
the Old and Xew Testaments, and our entire loyalty to 
the principles of the Presbyterian Church, and desire 
respectfully to record our solemn protest against the ver- 
dict and suspension, and the proceedings leading to the 
verdict, of the case against the Rev. Charles A. Briggs, 
D. D., in the General Assembly of 1893 — 

"1. As involving, in our judgment, acts of doubtful 
constitutionality. 

"2. As seeming to abridge the liberty of opinion hith- 
erto enjoyed under our standards by office-bearers in the 
church. 

"3. Tending, we believe, to the discouragement of the 
thorough study of the Bible, and reverent advance in 
apprehension of divine truth; and — 

" 4. As inflicting what we cannot but feel is an injustice 
on a Christian scholar of acknowledged high character and 
learning, as well as on the Presbytery of Xew York, which 
has fully acquitted him of the charges alleged against him." 

The resolution offered by Dr. Herrick Johnson, in 
behalf of himself and others, was as follows : — 

"The undersigned enter respectful and earnest protest 
against the action of the Assembly which declares the 



DECISIONS AND PROTESTS. 171 

inerrancy of the original autographs of Scripture to be 
the faith of the church. 

' ' We protest against this action — 

"1. Because it is insisting upon a certain theory of 
inspiration, when our standards have hitherto only em- 
phasized the fact of inspiration. So far as the original 
manuscript came from God, undoubtedly it was without 
error. But we have no means of determining how far 
God controlled the penmen in transcribing from docu- 
ments matters purely circumstantial. 

"2. Because it is dogmatizing on a matter of which 
necessarily we have no positive knowledge. 

"3. Because it is insisting upon an interpretation of 
our standards which they never have borne, and which on 
their face is impossible. jS"o man in subscribing to his 
belief in the Scripture as the Word of God, the only 
infallible rule of faith and practice, has his mind on the 
' or i gi nal auto graph s . ' 

"4. Because it is getting up an imaginary Bible as a 
test of orthodoxy. If an inerrant original Bible is vital 
to faith, we cannot escape the conclusion that an inerrant 
present Bible is vital to faith. 

"5. Because it is disparaging the Bible we have and 
endangering its authority, under the pressure of a preva- 
lent hostile criticism. It seems like flying for shelter 
to an original autograph, when the Bible we have in our 
hands to-day is an impregnable defence. 

"Believing the present Scripture to be 'the very Word 
of God, ' and ' immediately inspired by God, ' ' kept pure 
in all ages/ and 'our only infallible rule of faith and 
practice/ notwithstanding some apparent discrepancies in 
matters purely circumstantial, we earnestly protest against 
the thrusting of this new interpretation of our standards 



172 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

upon the church to bind men's consciences by enforced 
subscription to its terms." 

To this protest the committee appointed to prepare 
an answer recommended the adoption of the follow- 
ing, and its report was accepted : — 

" The committee appointed to prepare an answer to the 
protest of Dr. Herrick Johnson, Dr. S. J. Niccolls, and 
others, recommend the adoption of the following: — 

"As already announced by this General Assembly, the 
deliverance of the Portland Assembly, and the deliver- 
ances of this body, touching the inspiration of the Holy 
Scriptures, impose no new test of orthodoxy, nor do they 
set forth any theory of inspiration, but only reaffirm the 
statement of our Confession of Faith, chapter i. sections 2, 
4, 5, 8, and 10, the Larger Catechism question 3, — state- 
ments to which every minister and every elder in the 
church gives his assent at his ordination in response to 
the following question: 'Do you believe the Scriptures of 
the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God, and 
only infallible rule of faith and practice ? ' 

"We can, therefore, say with the protestants, we be- 
lieve ' these present Scriptures to be the very word of 
God,' and ( immediately inspired by God,' 'kept pure in 
all ages,' and our only 'infallible rule of faith and prac- 
tice,' while if errors were found in the original autographs 
they could not have proceeded from l God, who is truth 
itself, the author thereof.' 

E. D. Warfield, Chairman." 

It may be noted here that the Assembly passed a 
resolution also expressive of its disapproval of the 
action of the directors of Union Theological Seminary 



DECISIONS AND PROTESTS. 173 

in standing by Dr. Briggs, retaining him as a teacher, 
and rescinding their resolution of 1870, which pro- 
vided that all appointments of professors " shall be 
reported to the General Assembly, and no such 
appointment of professor shall be considered as a 
complete election if disapproved by a majority of the 
Assembly." The rescinding of this resolution had 
been voted for by nineteen of the twenty directors, 
only one of the twenty directors being opposed 
to it. 

The fact that those who stood nearest to Dr. Briggs, 
and were presumably best acquainted with him and 
his views, stood by him in the face of whatever sacri- 
fice it might cost them, might have been regarded as 
an indication that those who were gathered together 
from far and near, and who were not intimately ac- 
quainted with Dr. Briggs and his teaching, had mis- 
understood the man and misinterpreted his views. 
But the Assembly did not so judge ; but, on the con- 
trary, condemned the action of the directors of the 
Union Theological Seminary by adopting the follow- 
ing recommendations of its committee on Theological 
Seminaries : — 

" Because, then, of the strange and unwarranted action 
of the directors in retaining Dr. Briggs after his appoint- 
ment had been disapproved by the Assembly ; and because 
of the refusal by the directors to arbitrate the single point 
in dispute between the Assembly and the board; and 
because of the attempt of the board on its own motion, and 
against the expressed desire of the Assembly to abrogate 
the compact of 1870, the Assembly disavows all responsi- 



174 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

bility for the teaching of Union Seminary, and declines to 
receive any report from its board until satisfactory rela- 
tions are established. The Assembly, however, cherishes 
the hope, and will cordially welcome any effort to bring 
Union Seminary into such a relationship with itself as 
will enable the Assembly to commend the institution 
again to students for the ministry. 

"Your committee would further recommend that the 
board of education be enjoined to give aid to such students 
only as may be in attendance upon seminaries approved 
by the Assembly. 

"Your committee would also recommend that the re- 
election of the Rev. Charles A. Briggs by the Presbytery 
of New York as a director of the German Theological 
Seminary at Bloomfield, X. J., be disaffirmed by this 
Assembly." 

The following explanatory remarks by Prof. Francis 
Brown, D.D., should be added : — 

"Mr. Moderator and brethren, there is no member of 
the board of directors of Union Seminary on the floor of 
this house. Therefore, although I am a member of the 
faculty, and, as such, responsible only to the board of 
directors for instruction in a certain dejDartrnent, I may be 
pardoned, as standing here in some sense for the seminary, 
for saying a few words. 

(i I desire not to introduce personal elements into this 
discussion. Although, at the outset I may be permitted 
to say, now that the judicial case is substantially closed, 
that in refraining from personal elements in the discussion 
at the present time I do so without prejudice to my warm 
affection, high esteem, and confidence in my revered 



DECISIONS AND PEOTESTS. 175 

teacher, colleague, and friend, who has been so promi- 
nently before you during the past few days. 

""With reference to the action proposed by this assem- 
bly concerning Union Seminary, I have no objection to 
offer. If this assembly desires to take such action, or 
esteems it to be just and wise, no difficulty will be thrown 
in its way by any word that I shall speak. Union Semi- 
nary is not here pleading for anything from this assembly, 
either recognition or indorsement, either the receipts of 
these reports or the recommendation of students who may 
be sent to it to the board of education. These matters 
must be decided by authorities other than those of Union 
Seminary. 

" The case is simply this : Union Seminary was founded 
as an independent seminary upon its own charter, owing 
ecclesiastical allegiance as an institution to no body what- 
ever. It continued in the exercise of its rights under its 
charter, without any ecclesiastical connection whatsoever, 
for thirty-four years. At the end of that time it entered 
into an agreement with the General Assembly of the united 
church with certain provisions. Twenty-one years later it 
conceived that those provisions had not been carried out 
on the part of the General Assembly, and, recognizing fully 
the intention of the Assembly to abide by the agreement, 
it nevertheless felt that its chartered and constitutional 
rights had been infringed, and that, without surrendering 
a part of those chartered and constitutional rights and 
proving in this way false to the trust which the charter 
and the constitution imposed on the board, it could not 
acquiesce in the action of the Assembly of 1891. There is 
no spirit of revolt or rebellion behind this action, but a 
serious, earnest, profound desire to be faithful to obliga- 
tions assumed in the sight of God and men, and to do 



176 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

without fear or favor what conscience dictated in obedi- 
ence to those obligations. 

"Please understand that I am not apologizing for the 
board of directors of Union Seminary, and that I am not 
putting in any plea for the mitigation of judgment. 
Nothing is further from my desire. I simply desired to 
make it plain to you, if I could, that from their point of 
view the directors of the seminary have acted in a straight- 
forward, consistent, honorable, and faithful manner with 
reference to the interests of that seminary which were 
legally committed to them, and to them alone." 

One of the incidental circumstances emphasized by 
the prosecution and that had weight with many mem- 
bers of the Assembly in deciding them to vote for the 
condemnation of the views of Dr. Briggs was the fact 
that the Presbytery of New York, in acquitting him of 
heresy, seemed to them to condemn his views. The 
language referred to in the Presbytery's decision is as 
follows : — 

"Therefore, without expressing approval of the criti- 
cal or theological views embodied in the inaugural 
address, or the manner in which they have been expressed 
and illustrated, the presbytery pronounces the Rev. 
Charles A. Briggs, D.D., fully acquitted of the offences 
alleged against him." 

A little reflection will satisfy any one that this lan- 
guage of the presbytery did not necessarily imply any 
condemnation of Dr. Briggs' views. There were other 
considerations besides the soundness or unsoundness 



DECISIONS AND PROTESTS. 177 

of the views in question, which made it prudent for 
the presbytery to express no approval of them. 

The views in question were in some instances extra- 
Confessional ; nothing had been formulated in the 
Westminster standards regarding them, — as for ex- 
ample, in the case of the authorship of the Pentateuch, 
and the hook of Isaiah. This being so, the presby- 
tery would have been out of its sphere had it 
expressed approval of them. It may be questioned 
if even a General Assembly could properly assume 
such a prerogative. It is not by vote of any single 
church court, but by the conjoint action of presby- 
teries, that doctrines can be formulated as doctrines 
of the church. 

Then there are many views which an orthodox 
minister may hold and teach, which come in conflict 
with no doctrine taught in the Word of God, or formu- 
lated in the standards of the church, but which other 
Presbyterian ministers, whether in their individual 
capacity or acting as members of a church court, 
would be unwilling to endorse. 

Suppose that a minister is charged with heresy for 
holding and teaching " f ree trade" views. When his 
brethren come to examine his views, they will find 
nothing in either the Word of God or the standards 
of the Presbyterian Church, with which his teaching 
is in conflict. They will accordingly pronounce him 
fully acquitted of the charge of heresy, but they will 
be careful to insert the clause, " without expressing 
approval of the views in question." 

Probably the reason which influenced some of the 



178 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

members of the Presbytery of New York to express 
no approval of the views for which Dr. Briggs had 
been put on trial was because they felt that they had 
not given the views in question sufficient study. They 
understood them well enough to see that they were 
not in conflict with any vital doctrine, but had not 
mastered them so completely as to make them part of 
their own thinking, — their own independent belief. 
All must see that under such circumstances it would 
have been unwise for intelligent and independent men 
to as much as let it be thought that they expressed 
their personal approval of the views in question. 

If it be claimed that the members of the court 
of the presbytery could not intelligently acquit Dr. 
Briggs, and declare that his views were not in con- 
flict with any vital doctrine, if they did not so master 
his views as to make them part of their own thinking, 
then may it also be claimed that the members of the 
Supreme Court of the church could not intelligently 
condemn Dr. Briggs and declare that his views were 
in conflict with vital doctrine, if they did not so mas- 
ter them as to make them part of their own thinking. 
And who will claim that the views of Dr. Briggs were 
thus mastered by the majority of the ministers and 
ruling elders in the assembly, in the brief time, and 
under the peculiar circumstances, in which they were 
considered ? 

In any case, if the deliverance of a general assem- 
bly in a heresy trial were simply an expression of the 
opinions of a majority of its members, without their 
having made themselves thoroughly acquainted with 



DECISIONS AND PROTESTS. 179 

all the facts of the case and all the doctrines in ques- 
tion, such opinions might he of hut little value. 

Even if, in the opinion of the members of the 
Presbytery of New York, the views of Dr. Briggs were 
incorrect, this could not of itself be equivalent to a 
condemnation of his views as heretical. The General 
Assembly of 1824, in pointing out to the Synod of 
Kentucky that a wrong had been done in condemning 
Mr. Craighead because of his " perverting, etc., the 
sentiments of the preachers and writers in our con- 
nection," said : u In our connection there are a multi- 
tude of preachers and writers differing by many shades 
of opinion from each other. How then can this be a 
just ground of accusation ? " (Moore's Digest, p. 578.) 



180 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE WRONG AND ITS REMEDY. 

THE foregoing review has not dealt with the pro- 
longed discussion in the Washington Assembly 
on the question of jurisdiction and procedure, — not 
because that question was not important or had not 
a vital connection with the proper issuing of the case, 
but because it was of less importance than the discus- 
sion of the merits of the case, and also because the 
necessarily protracted discussion of it seemed both to 
weary the court before the merits of the case were 
reached, and in various ways obscure the real issue. 

As the court, in the exercise of its discretion, saw 
fit to pass by the Synod of New York and try the 
case on a direct appeal from the decision of the pres- 
bytery, all that need be remarked here is that in thus 
exercising its discretion, the Assembly did not act in 
accordance with a precedent established in 1816 in 
the Bourne case, to the effect that when it is discre- 
tionary as to whether a case shall be transferred from 
the presbytery to the synod or directly to the General 
Assembly, the wishes of the accused shall be respected, 
and he shall be tried by the court he prefers. (See 
Moore's Digest, p. 555.) It is true also that, in refus- 
ing to accede to Dr. Briggs' wish to be first tried by 



THE WRONG AND ITS REMEDY. 181 

the synod, the Assembly deprived him of the right of 
complaint, and that at a time when complaint of his 
against action of the presbytery was already pending 
before the Synod of New York. 

Another grave question raised by the defendant and 
set aside by the Assembly was as to the legality of 
entertaining an appeal against a verdict of acquittal 
in any case, and putting a man on trial for his eccle- 
siastical life a second time. But this question need 
not be discussed here. 

The gravest question as to procedure presented by 
the defendant and overborne by the Assembly was 
not in connection with the discussion of the question 
of jurisdiction, but in the discussion of the merits of 
the case ; namely, the disregarding of an important 
precedent established in 1824, in the Craighead 
case. The principle laid down in that precedent 
was expressed in the following explicit terms : — 

" A man cannot fairly be convicted of heresy for using 
expressions which may he so interpreted as to involve 
heretical doctrines, if they may also admit of a more 
favorable construction; because no one can tell in what 
sense an ambiguous expression is used but the speaker or 
writer, and he has a right to explain himself; and in such 
cases candor requires that a court should favor the accused 
by putting on his words the more favorable rather than 
the less favorable construction. 

" Another principle is that no man can rightly be 
convicted of heresy by inference or implication; that is, 
we must not charge an accused person with holding those 
consequences which may legitimately flow from his asser- 



182 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

tions. Man)' men are grossly inconsistent with them- 
selves; and while it is right in argument to overthrow 
false opinions by tracing them in their connections and 
consequences, it is not right to charge any man with an 
opinion which he disavows.'' (Moore's Digest, p. 224.) 

Not only did the Washington Assembly disregard this 
precedent, but the Prosecuting Committee, through 
one of their number, Dr. Birch, went so far as to cast 
slight upon it — not to say upon the Assemblies by 
which it had been instituted and respected — by 
boldly affirming with reference to it that " the posi- 
tion that a man cannot be condemned on an infer- 
ence, even though it be a necessary inference, is a 
false one." 

To the disregard of the principles laid down in the 
above precedent, the suspension of Dr. Briggs from 
the gospel ministry is wholly due. Had the Assembly 
not convicted Dr. Briggs of heresy by inference or 
implication, and by charging him with opinions which 
he disavows, it could not have convicted him at all. 
Had a presbytery or synod convicted him in the 
same way, on his appealing to the General Assembly 
the Assembly would have been bound to reverse the 
decision of the lower court, or else depart from what 
has been the well-established policy of the church in 
the past, as may be seen by referring to the action of 
the supreme court of the church in the two following- 
important cases. 

Mr. Craighead was suspended from the gospel 
ministry on a decision of the Synod of Kentucky, 



THE WROXG AND ITS REMEDY. 183 

based upon inference or implication, and although 
there were several particulars in his conduct which 
the Assembly severely condemned, the decision of 
the synod was reversed, and Mr. Craighead was re- 
stored by the Presbytery of West Tennessee, acting 
under the Assembly's instructions. (Moore's Digest, 
p. 225.) 

The following extracts from the Assembly's deliv- 
erance in the case may serve to illustrate the applica- 
tion of the above principles : — 

"Mr. Craighead may be understood as teaching that 
the only real agency of the Spirit was in inspiring the 
Scriptures and confirming them by signs and miracles. 
There is much in his discourse that has this bearing, and 
undoubtedly this is the common impression among the 
people where it is best known. This was the idea of the 
Synod of Kentucky when they condemned him, and this 
is in fact denying the operation of the Spirit in our days; 
and whether his expressions have been fairly interpreted 
or not ; they are dangerous and ought to be condemned. 
In justice to Mr. Craighead, however, it ought to be 
remembered that he utterly disclaims this meaning in his 
defence set up to this Assembly; and would it be fair to 
continue to charge upon him opinions which he solemnly 
disavows ? Of the sincerity of his disavowal God is the 
judge. The conclusion is that the first charge, though 
supported by strong probabilities, is not so conclusively 
established as to remove all doubt, because the words 
adduced in proof will bear a different construction from 
that put upon them by the presbytery and synod. 

" The evidence in support of the second charge is still 
less clear and conclusive. The charge is : — 



184 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

"'We charge him with denying, vilifying, and mis- 
representing the doctrine of Divine foreordi nation and 
sovereignty and election.' 

"It might, perhaps, be shown by argument that Mr. 
Craighead uses many expressions not consistent with 
these doctrines; but agreeably to the principle laid down 
above, he must not be charged with holding these conse- 
quences unless he has avowed them." (Moore's Digest, 
pp. 224, 225.) 

Twelve years after the establishing of the above 
precedent, the Synod of Philadelphia disregarded it 
in the celebrated case of the Rev. Albert Barnes. In 
reversing the synod's decision, the General Assembly 
pointed out the distinctions which the synod had 
overlooked in relying upon the inferences they had 
drawn from Mr. Barnes' language. There is a close 
parallel between the Barnes case and the Briggs case 
in this particular, that both of these defendants were 
condemned on a misunderstanding of terms and their 
application, and on the teaching of extra-Confessional, 
not contra-Confessional opinions, as a comparison of 
the record of the trial of Dr. Briggs with the following 
extracts from the deliverance of the Assembly in the 
Barnes case will show : — 

"Resolved, That the decision of the Synod of Philadel- 
phia, suspending Rev. Albert Barnes from all the functions 
proper to the gospel ministiybe and it hereby is reversed." 
[Yeas, 145; nays, 78; declined voting, 11.] 

In reply to two protests which were presented the 
Assembly made the following statements as to the 
doctrines involved : — 



THE WRONG AND ITS REMEDY. 185 

" The correctness of the preceding positions is confirmed, 
in the opinion of the Assembly, by a careful analysis of the 
real meaning of Mr. Barnes under each charge, as ascer- 
tained by the language of his book and the revisions, dis- 
claimers, explanations, and declarations which he has made. 

" In respect to the first charge, that Mr. Barnes teaches 
that all sin is voluntary, the context and his own declara- 
tions show that he refers to all actual sin merely, in which 
he affirms the sinner acts under no compulsion. 

"The second charge implies neither heresy nor errors, 
but relates to the expression of an opinion on a matter con- 
cerning which no definite instruction is contained either 
in the Bible or in the Confession of Faith. 

" In respect to the third charge Mr. Barnes has not 
taught that unregenerate men are able, in the sense 
alleged, to keep the commandments and convert them- 
selves to God. It is an inference of the prosecutor from 
the doctrine of natural ability as taught by Edwards, and 
of the natural liberty of the will as taught in the Confes- 
sion of Faith, chap, ix., sec. i. On the contraiy, he does 
teach, in accordance with our standards, that man by the 
fall, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual 
good accompanying salvation. 

" In respect to the fourth charge, that faith is an act of 
the mind, Mr. Barnes does teach it, in accordance with 
the Confession of Faith and the Bible; but he does not 
deny that faith is a fruit of the special influence of the 
Spirit, and a permanent holy habit of mind, in opposition to 
a created physical essence. That faith is i counted for 
righteousness ' is the language of the Bible, and as used 
by Mr. Barnes means, not that faith is the meritorious 
ground of justification, but only the instrument by which 
the benefit of Christ's righteousness is appropriated. 



186 TRIAL OF DR. BKIGGS. 

" In respect to the fifth charge Mr. Barnes nowhere 
denies, much less ' sneers ' at the idea that Adam was the 
covenant and federal head of his posterity; on the con- 
trary though he employs not these terms, he does, in other 
language, teach the same truths which are taught by this 
phraseology. 

"In respect to the sixth and seventh charges, that the 
sin of Adam is not imputed to his posterity, and that 
mankind are not guilty or liable to punishment on account 
of the first sin of Adam, it is to be observed that it is not 
taught in the Confession of Faith that the sin of Adam is 
imputed to his posterity. The imputation of the guilt of 
Adam's sin, Mr. Barnes affirms, though not as including 
personal identity and the transfer of moral qualities, both 
of which are disclaimed by our standard writers and by 
the General Assembly. 

"In respect to the eighth charge, that Christ did not 
suffer the penalty of the law, as the vicarious substitute of 
His people, Mr. Barnes only denies the literal infliction 
of the whole curse, as including remorse of conscience and 
eternal death, but admits and teaches that the suffer- 
ings of Christ, owing to the union of the Divine and 
human natures in the person of the Mediator, were a full 
equivalent. 

" In respect to the ninth charge, that the righteousness 
of Christ is not imputed to His people, Mr. Barnes teaches 
the imputation of the righteousness of Christ, but not as 
importing a transfer of Christ's personal righteousness to 
believers, which is not the doctrine of our church. And 
when he sa}'s that there is no sense in which the right- 
eousness of Christ becomes ours, the context and his own 
declarations show that he simply means to deny a literal 
transfer of His obedience; which, on the contrary, he 



THE WRONG AND ITS REMEDY. 187 

teaches is so imputed or set to our account as to become 
the only meritorious cause or ground of our justification. 

u In respect to the tenth charge, Mr. Barnes has not 
taught that justification consists in pardon only, but has 
tauo-ht clearly that it includes the reception of believers 
into favor, and their treatment as if they had not sinned." 
(Moore's Digest, pp. 226-227.) 

Had the Assembly of 1893 observed distinctions of 
terms and made " a careful analysis of the real mean- 
ing of Dr. Briggs under each charge," as the Assembly 
of 1836 did in the case of Mr. Barnes, the verdict of 
acquittal by the New York Presbytery would have 
been sustained by the Washington Assembly. 

Upon a calm and impartial review of the whole case, 
one cannot but regret that this course was not taken. 
It would have saved the Church and the world the 
peril which must arise from the General Assembly of 
the Presbyterian Church in the United States declar- 
ing in effect that one of the ablest Biblical scholars, 
if not the very ablest, in that great church, has, as 
the result of over twenty years of special study and re- 
search, come to the following conclusions : (1) That 
the human reason and the Church are of equal author- 
ity with the Bible, and are in themselves sources of 
salvation (doctrines which Dr. Briggs has neither held 
nor taught). (2) That the Bible is not the inspired 
Word of God (a conclusion which Dr. Briggs utterly 
repudiates). (3) That many of those who die in sin 
may be regenerated and saved in the middle state (a 
doctrine which Dr. Briggs distinctly declares he has 



188 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

not found in the Word of God, and therefore can nei- 
ther accept nor teach). 

To publish to the world that a Christian scholar of 
the well-known ability of Dr. Briggs has reached such 
conclusions as these, is to put a weapon in the hands 
of the foes of saving truth which they will use with 
tremendous effect in destroying the confidence of many 
in the Word of God. They will say, "Oh yes ! The 
great mass of the membership of the Presbyterian 
Church believe so and so, but here is the opinion of an 
expert, whose opinion is worth more than the opinions 
of all less scholarly persons put together." 

It was alleged as an offence that the views of Dr. 
Briggs were being " industriously spread." But alas ! 
unintentionally indeed, yet none the less truly, the 
false views attributed to Dr. Briggs are being a thou- 
sand times more industriously spread through the 
action of those who have mistakenly opposed him. 

The sooner the world is assured that Dr. Briggs 
does not either hold or teach a single one of the heret- 
ical doctrines for the alleged holding of which he 
has been condemned and suspended from the gospel 
ministry, the better for the Church and for the world 
at large. 

The injury done has not been mainly the discour- 
aging of ministers, young men and others in the Pres- 
byterian Church, from a critical study of the Holy 
Scriptures, or the inciting of them to pursue such 
study in a spirit of hostility to the Church ; nor has 
it been mainly that it has exposed the Presbyterian 
Church to the loss of influence for good through a 



THE WRONG AND ITS REMEDY. 189 

loss of prestige as a church which has always been 
prepared to settle questions that have arisen regard- 
ing the truth, on the basis of the broadest and most 
accurate intelligence, and not on the ground of tradi- 
tion and popular opinion. 

I cannot say that an injury has been done to Union 
Theological Seminary ; for intelligent young men, 
looking toward the ministry, will judge for themselves, 
from their knowledge of the merits of the case, and 
will be likely to declare themselves in favor of liberty 
to think. 

Nor has the wrong done been simply a wrong to 
Dr. Briggs. He may be able to endure to be misun- 
derstood. His consciousness of having to endure this 
may itself be a source of comfort to him. He may 
look unto One infinitely greater than all earth's di- 
vines, Who was charged with being a blasphemer and 
condemned by the leaders of the orthodox Church of 
His day, and may feel that in having to bear a like 
cross after Him he is infinitely honored. He may be 
cheered too by the conviction that the time will not 
be long in coining when his views will be better under- 
stood. 

But whatever wrong may have been done to Dr. 
Briggs, or to the seminary in which lie is a much 
esteemed teacher, or to the consciences of brethren in 
the Presbyterian Church near and far who feel that 
the Church which they love and truths that are dear 
to their hearts have been alike misrepresented, the 
great wrong done is that the truth has not been 
brought out and made to shine. On the contrary, 



190 TRIAL OF DR BRIGGS. 

error has been honored and magnified by being bidden 
to quote, as on its side, a great Biblical scholar born 
and educated in the Presbyterian Church, If any one 
thing more than another grieves Dr. Briggs, it must 
be that in spite of all his arguments, explanations, 
and solemn protestations to the contrary, his oppo- 
nents have persisted in representing to the world that 
the result of all his scholarship and years of special 
study of the Holy Scriptures, has been to lead him to 
teach that the Bible is not the infallible Word of God, 
and to cause him to disregard its authority and to do 
despite unto the Saviour whom the Bible reveals. 

This is indeed a painful position in which to place 
one who loves the Lord, who loves the Bible as His 
inspired Word, who rejoices in Christ, and has no 
confidence in the flesh, but hates error in all its 
forms. Yet this is the effect of the suspension of 
Dr. Briggs from the gospel ministry on the charges 
preferred against him. 

Is there no relief from such a position ? There is. 
Tt will be competent for another General Assembly, 
after due investigation, to say that the circumstances 
surrounding the trial of Dr. Briggs were such as pre- 
vented the Assembly at Washington from being in 
proper possession of all the facts and arguments pre- 
sented, and that, as the result, Dr. Briggs was con- 
demned for holding heretical views, which he solemnly 
disavows, and for holding extra-Confessional views, 
which were only supposed to be heretical ; and that 
on a more minute and extended examination of the 
evidence and arguments in the case than it was pos- 



THE WRONG AND ITS REMEDY. 191 

sible for the Assembly at Washington to make, it has 
been found that the accused did not either hold or 
teach heretical views, and that therefore he be relieved 
of the sentence passed upon him. 

But can a General Assembly correct errors into 
which a preceding Assembly may have fallen ? It 
would be unfortunate for the Presbyterian form of 
government if it could not. An Assembly not only 
can reverse the decision of a preceding Assembly, but 
has repeatedly done this. 

The Assembly of 1822 found that the Assembly of 
1811 had erred in a decision it rendered in connection 
with the Craighead case, and accordingly reversed 
that decision, the result of which was that Mr. Craig- 
head, who had been suspended from the ministry, was 
restored. (Moore's Digest, p. 586). 

The Assembly of 1864, N.S., on being memorialized 
by the Synod of Onondaga, reversed a decision of the 
past Assembly on two grounds : (1) " that the last 
Assembly seemed to have acted without such a knowl- 
edge of all the facts of the case as a regular presen- 
tation of the complaint and the records would have 
given them ; " and (2) on the ground that they had 
overlooked the principle that the discretion of a court 
is not a matter of review by the General Assembly. 
(Moore's Digest, p. 533.) 

It .will be competent therefore for a synod, presby- 
tery, session, or single individual in the Presbyterian 
Church in the United States of America, to memori- 
alize the next or some subsequent General Assembly, 
praying that Dr. Briggs be relieved of the sentence 



192 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGGS. 

of suspension passed upon him ; and the memorial 
may assign valid reasons, which need cast no reflec- 
tion upon cither the last or any preceding Assembly. 
The Westminster Confession intends no reflection 
when it says (chap, xxxi., sec. iv.) : "All synods 
or councils since the Apostles' times, whether gene- 
ral or particular, may err, and many have erred ; 
therefore they are not to be made the rule of faith or 
practice, but to be used as an help in both.'' 



CLOSING SUMMARY. 193 



CHAPTER XIII. 

CLOSING SUMMARY. 

AS a lover of the Presbyterian Church, though a 
stranger alike to Dr. Briggs, the prosecution, and 
the members of the Washington Assembly, and hav- 
ing no personal interest whatever in the issue of this 
case, I have this testimony to bear as the result of 
having heard the whole case discussed in the Assem- 
bly at Washington, and thereafter having carefully 
reviewed all the evidence and arguments as contained 
in the official report of the Assembly : — 

1. That while the language used by Dr. Briggs in 
speaking of the Bible, the Church, and the Reason as 
three great fountains of Divine authority, seemed 
at first to convey an idea which as an orthodox Pres- 
byterian I could not accept, a more careful reading of 
the argument of Dr. Briggs, together with the explan- 
ations made by him before the Assembly, has made 
it perfectly clear that his views in regard to the 
authority of the Bible, the Church, and the Reason 
are eminently Scriptural and in entire accord with 
the doctrines of the Westminster Confession and 
Catechisms. 

2. That while Dr. Briggs holds, in common with 
all orthodox scholars and divines, that errors of 

13 



194 TRIAL OF DR. BRIGG8. 

various kinds arc faithfully recorded in the Holy 
Scriptures, he at the same time holds firmly to the 
doctrine of plenary inspiration, and believes that such 
recorded errors do not in any way interfere with the 
doctrine that the Bible is the only infallible rule of 
faith and practice, but that, on the contrary, when, 
through a right understanding of the consent of all 
the parts, the Bible's teaching is ascertained, it is seen 
to be in truth the inspired Word, the revelation of the 
mind and will of GocL 

3. That while, in common with many orthodox 
scholars and divines, Dr. Briggs believes that Moses 
was not the author of the Pentateuch as a whole, and 
that Isaiah did not write one half of the book that 
bears his name ; and while in this he differs from the 
popular and traditional opinion regarding the author- 
ship of these portions of Holy Scripture, he does not 
differ from anything taught in the Word of God, or 
the Westminster standards ; nor does he hold those 
views in such a way as to lessen his reverence for 
those parts of Scripture as the inspired Word of God, 
or to cause him to question any of the statements 
made either in them or in other parts of Scripture 
regarding these six books or the persons commonly 
regarded as their authors, but, on the contrary, his 
reverence for those parts of Scripture, and the Word 
of God as a whole, is increased. 

4. That while Dr. Briggs holds what is called the 
doctrine of progressive sanctification after death, in 
opposition to instantaneous perfection at the moment 
of death, his views, when analyzed, are found to be 



CLOSING SUMMARY. 195 

in substantial agreement with those of all orthodox 
Christians, the difference being mainly in the terms 
used and not at all in the essential truth that all 
believers at death pass immediately into the presence 
of Christ, into a state of exalted blessedness, although 
they do not attain to the highest blessedness until 
after the resurrection and the Day of Judgment. 

5. That with reference to the two charges upon 
which Dr. Briggs has not been tried, the first of these 
charges — namely, that many of the Old Testament 
predictions have been reversed by history, and that 
the great body of Messianic prediction has not been and 
cannot be fulfilled — is based upon a misunderstand- 
ing; of language and arguments used by Dr. Briggs, 
and charges him with holding views which are directly 
opposed to the views he does hold, and which he has 
taught for years with great ability and clearness. 

With regard to the second of these two " rejected 
charges," — namely, that the processes of redemption 
extend to the world to come in the case of many who 
die in sin, — this charge is also based upon a misunder- 
standing of language and arguments used by Dr. 
Briggs, and charges him with holding views which he 
has distinctly declared that he does not hold, and has 
not found in all his searching of the Word of God. 

My deep conviction is that Dr. Briggs has not been 
justly convicted of heresy, but that, on the contrary, 
he has been condemned and suspended from the min- 
istry for deducing sound doctrines from the Word of 
God, — doctrines which are contrary to nothing con- 
tained in the Westminster standards, although thev 



1!V> TRIAL OF DB BRIGGS. 

may not all be found formulated in those standards ; 
and tor manifesting a willingness to accept and teach 
any doctrine that may be proved from Scripture to he 
true, although it may not be found in any of the past 
decisions, of synods and councils, the Westminster 
Assembly of divines included ; and in this he is in 
the truest accord with the Westminster Confession, — 
chapter L, section x. being as follows : " The supreme 
judge by which all controversies of religion are to be 
determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of 
ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, 
are to be examined and in whose sentence we are to 
rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in 
the Scripture." The civil power would never know- 
ingly condemn any man for having only appeared to 
break the law ; neither will the Presbyterian Church. 
When the real position of the Rev. Dr. Briggs comes 
to be known, the Presbyterian Church in the United 
States of America will, without doubt, accord him 
that justice to which he is sacredly entitled, and re- 
move the sentence passed upon him. 



1'P 

> 7 <J 



